LETTERS TO AND FROM Mr. WY CHERLEY a From the Year 1704 to 1710. I LETTER I. Binfield in Windfor Foreft, Dec. 26, 1704 b. T was certainly a great fatisfaction to me to fee and converfe with a Man, whom in his writings I had fo long known with pleafure; but it was a high addition to it, to hear 2 If one were to judge of | this fet of Letters by the manner of thinking and turn of expreffion, one should conclude they had been all mif-titled; and that the letters given to the boy of fixteen, were written by the man of feventy, and fo on the contrary; fuch fober fenfe, fuch gravity of manners, and fo much judgment, and knowledge of compofition, enlivened with the Iprightlinefs of manly wit, diftinguish thofe of Mr. Pope:" while, on the other hand, a childish jealoufy, a puerile affectation, an attention and lying at catch for turns and points, together with a total ignorance and contempt of order, of method, and of all relation of the parts to one another to compofe a reasonable whole, make up the character of thofe of Mr. Wycherley. b The author's age then Sixteen. P. B 2 you, your you, at our very first meeting, doing justice to dead friend Mr. Dryden. I was not fo happy as to know him: Virgilium tantum vidi c. Had I been born early enough, I must have known and loved him: For I have been affured, not only by yourself, but by Mr. Congreve and Sir William Trumbul, that his personal Qualities were as amiable as his Poetical, notwithstanding the many libellous mifrepresentations of them, against which the former of these Gentlemen has told me he will one day vindicate him d. I fuppofe thofe injuries were begun by the violence of Party, but 'tis no doubt they were continued by envy at his fuccefs and fame : And thofe Scriblers who attacked him in his latter times, were only like gnats in a fummer evening, which are never very troublesome but in the finest and most glorious feafon; for his fire, like the fun's, fhined cleareft towards its fetting. You must not therefore imagine, that when you told me my own performances were above When a very young | duodecimo Edition of DryBoy, he prevailed with a den's Plays, 1717. P. friend to carry him to a Coffee-houfe which Dryden frequented; where he had the fatisfaction he speaks of. d He fince did fo, in his dedication to the Duke of Newcastle, prefix'd to the A e The fact feems to have been juft the reverfe. One of the first Satires against him was the Duke of Buckingham's Rehearsal; and one of the laft, Montague's parody of his Hind and Panther. thofe thofe Critics, I was fo vain as to believe it; and yet I may not be fo humble as to think myself quite below their notice. For critics, as they are birds of prey, have ever a natural in clination to carrion: and tho' fuch poor writers poor but he as I are but beggars, no beggar is fo |
