MR LETTER XXVIII. From Mr. CROMWELL. Oct. 26, 1711. R. Wycherley vifited me at Bath in my ficknefs, and exprefs'd much affection to me: hearing from me how welcome his letters would be, he prefently writ to you; in which I inferted my fcrall, and after, a fecond. He went to Gloucester in his way to Salop, but was difappointed of a boat, and fo return'd to the Bath; then he fhewed me your answer to his letters, in which you speak of my goodnature, but, I fear, you found me very froward at Reading; yet you allow for my illness. I could not poffibly be in the fame house with Mr. Wycherley, tho' I fought it earneftly; nor come up to town with him, he being engaged with others; but, whenever we met, we talk'd of you. He praises your * Poem, and even out-vies me in kind expreffions of you. As if he had not wrote two letters to you, he was for writing every poft; I put him in mind he had already. Forgive me this wrong; I know not whether my talking fo much of your great humanity. and tenderness to me, and love to him; or whether the return of his natural difpofition to you, was the cause; but certainly you are now highly in his favour: now he will come this winter to your house, and I must go with him; but first he will invite you fpeedily to town. I arrived on Saturday last much wearied, yet had wrote fooner, but was told by Mr. Gay (who has writ a pretty poem to Lintot, and who gives you his fervice) that you was gone from home, Lewis fhewed me your Letter, which fet me right, and your next letter is impatiently expected * Effay on Criticism. P. from from me. Mr. Wycherley came to town on Sunday laft, and kindly furprized me with a vifit on Monday morning. We dined and drank together; and I faying, To our Loves, he reply'd, 'Tis Mr. Pope's health: He faid he would go to Mr. Thorold's and leave a letter for you. Tho' I cannot answer for the event of all this, in respect to him; yet I can affure you, that, when you please to come, you will be most defirable to me, as always by inclination, fo now by duty, who fhall ever be Your, &c. LETTER XXIX. Nov. 12, 1711. I Received the entertainment of your letter the day after I had fent you one of mine, and I am but this morning returned hither. The news you tell me of the many difficulties you found in your return from Bath, gives me fuch a kind of pleasure as we usually take in accompanying our friends in their mix'd adventures; for, methinks, I fee you labouring thro' all your inconveniencies of the rough roads, the hard faddle, the trotting horse, and what not? What an agreeable furprize would it have been to me, to have met you by pure accident, (which I was within an ace of doing) and to have carried you off triumphantly, fat you on an easier pad, and relieved the wandring knight with a night's lodging and rural repaft, at our caftle in the foreft? But these are only the pleafing imaginations of a disappointed lover, who muft fuffer in a melancholy abfence yet thefe two months. In the mean time, I take up with the Mufes for want of your better company; the Mufes, quæ nobifcum pernoctant, peregrinantur, rufticantur. Thofe aerial ladies just discover enough to to me of their beauties to urge my purfuit, and draw me on in a wandering maze of thought, ftill in hopes (and only in hopes) of a'taining those favours from them, which they confer on their more happy admirers. We grasp some more beautiful idea in our own brain, than our endeavours to express it can set to the view of others; and ftill do but labour to fall fhort of our firft imagination. The gay colouring which fancy gave at the first tranfient glance we had of it, goes off in the execution: like thofe various figures in the gilded clouds, which while we gaze long upon, to feparate the parts of each imaginary image, the whole faints before the eye, and decays into confufion. I am highly pleased with the knowledge you give me of Mr. Wycherley's prefent temper, which feems fo favourable to me. I fhall ever have fuch a fund of affection for him as to be agreeable to my→ self when I am so to him, and cannot but be gay when he is in good humour, as the furface of the earth (if you will pardon a poetical fimilitude) is clearer or gloomier, juft as the fun is brighter or more over-cast-I should be glad to fee the verfes to Lintot which you mention, for, methinks, fomething oddly agreeable may be produced from that fubject For what remains, I am fo well, that nothing but the affurance of your being so can make me better; and if you would have me live with any fatisfaction thefe dark days in which I cannot fee you, it must be by your writing fometimes to Your, &c. LET MR LETTER XXX. From Mr. CROMWELL. Dec. 7, 1711. like R. Wycherley has, I believe, fent you two or three letters of invitation ; but you, the fair, will be long follicited before you yield, to make the favour the more acceptable to the lover. He is much yours by his talk; for that unbounded genius which has rang'd at large like a libertine, now seems confin'd to you: and I fhould take him for your mistress too by your fimile of the fun and earth: 'Tis very fine, but inverted by the application; for the gaiety of your fancy, and the drooping of his by the withdrawing of your luftre, perfuades me it would be juster by the reverse. Oh happy favourite of the Mufes! how pernoctare, all night long with them? but alas! you do but toy, but fkirmish with them, and decline a clofe engagement. Leave Elegy and tranflation to the inferior clafs, on whom the Mufes only glance now and then like our winter-fun, and then leave them in the dark. Think on the dignity of Tragedy, which is of the greater poetry, as Dennis fays, and foil him at his other weapon, as you have done in Criticifm. Every one wonders that a genius like yours will not fupport the finking Drama; and Mr. Wilks (tho', I think, his talent is Comedy) has exprefs'd a furious ambition to fweli in your bufkins We have had a poor Comedy of Johnson's (not Ben) which held feven nights, and has got him three hundred pounds, for the town is fharp-fet on new plays. In vain would I fire you by intereft or ambition, when your mind is not fufceptible of either; tho' your authority (arifing from the general esteem, like that of Pompey) muft infallibly affure you of fuccefs; for for which in all your wifhes you will be attended with thofe of Your, &c. I LETTER XXXI. Dec. 21, 1711. F I have not writ to you fo foon as I ought, let my writing now atone for the delay; as it will infallibly do, when you know what a facrifice I make you at this time, and that every moment my eyes are employ'd upon this paper, they are taken off from two of the finest faces in the universe. But indeed 'tis fome confolation to me to reflect, that while I but write this period, I efcape fome hundred fatal darts from thofe unerring eyes, and about a thousand deaths or better. Now you, that delight in dying, would not once have dreamt of an absent friend in these circumstances; you that are so nice an admirer of beauty, or (as a Critic would fay after Terence) fo elegant a spectator of forms; you must have a fober difh of coffee, and a folitary candle at your fide, to write an epiftle lucubratory to your friend; whereas I can do it as well with two pair of radiant lights, that outfhine the golden god of day and filver goddess of night, and all the reFulgent eyes of the firmament.-You fancy now that Sappho's eyes are two of these my tapers, but it is no fuch matter; thefe are eyes that have more perfuafion in one glance than all Sappho's oratory and gefture together, let her put her body into what moving postures fhe pleases. Indeed, indeed, my friend, you could never have found fo improper a time to tempt me with intereft or ambition: let me but have the reputation of these in my keeping, and as for my own, let the devil, or let Dennis, take it for ever. How gladly would I give all I am worth, 6 that |