journey I perform'd on horseback, and I am very much disappointed that at prefent I feel myself fo little the better for it. I have indeed followed riding and exercise for three months fucceffively, and really think I was as well without it; fo that I begin to fear the illness I have fo long and so often complain'd of, is inherent in my constitution, and that I have nothing for it but patience a

As to your advice about writing Panegyric, 'tis what I have not frequently done. I have indeed done it sometimes against my judgment and inclinations, and I heartily repent of it. And at prefent, as I have no defire of reward, and fee no just reason of praise, I think I had better let it alone. There are flatterers good enough to be found, and I would not interfere any Gentleman's profeffion. I have feen no verses on these fublime occafions; so that I have no emulation: Let the patrons enjoy the authors, and the authors their patrons, for I know myself unworthy.

in

I am, &c.

Mr. Gay died the No- | Duke of Queensberry's house vember following at the in London, aged 46 years. P.

LET

I

LETTER XXV.

Mr. CLELAND to Mr. GAY a

Decemb. 16, 1731.

Am astonished at the complaints occafion'd by a late Epistle to the Earl of Burlington; and I fhould be afflicted were there the leaft juft ground for them. Had the writer attack'd Vice, at a time when it is not only tolerated but triumphant, and so far from being conceal'd as a Defect, that it is proclaim'd with oftentation as a Merit; I should have been apprehensive of the confequence: Had he fatyrized gamefters of a hundred thousand pounds fortune, acquir'd by fuch methods as are in daily practice, and almost universally encouraged: had he overwarmly defended the Religion of his country, against fuch books as come from every press, are publickly vended in every fhop, and greedily bought by almost every rank of men; or had he called our excellent weekly writers by the fame names which they openly bestow on the greatest men in the Miniftry, and out of the Ministry, for which they are all unpunished, and moft rewarded: In any of these

cases, indeed, I might have judged him too prefumptuous, and perhaps have trembled for his rashness.

I could not but hope better from this small and modest Epistle, which attacks no vice whatsoever; which deals only in Folly, and not Folly in general, but a single species of it; that only branch, for the oppofite excellency to which, the Noble Lord to whom it is written must neceffarily be celebrated. I fancied it might escape cenfure, especially seeing how tenderly these Follies are treated, and really lefs accused than, apologized for.

Yet hence the Poor are cloath'd, the Hungry fed,
Health to himself, and to his Infants Bread
The Lab'rer bears.

Is this fuch a crime, that to impute it to a man must be a grievous offence? "Tis an innocent Folly, and much more beneficent than the want of it; for ill tafte employs more hands, and diffufes expence more than a good one. Is it a moral defect? No, it is but a natural one, a want of taste. It is what the best good man living may be liable to. The worthiest Peer may live exemplarily in an ill-favour'd house, and the best reputed citizen be pleased with a vile garden. I thought (I say) the author had the common liberty to obferve a defect, and to compliment

3

compliment a friend for a quality that distinguishes him which I know not how any quality should do, if we were not to remark that it was wanting in others.

But, they say, the fatire is perfonal. I thought it could not be fo, because all its reflections are on things. His reflections are not on the man, but his house, garden, &c. Nay, he respects (as one may fay) the perfons of the Gladiator, the Nile, and the Triton: he is only forry to see them (as he might be to see any of his friends) ridiculous by being in the wrong place, and in bad company. Some fancy, that to fay, a thing is perfonal, is the fame as to fay it is injust, not confidering, that nothing can be just that is not perfonal. I am afraid that "all fuch writings and "difcourfes as touch no man, will mend no "man." The good-natured, indeed, are apt to be alarmed at any thing like fatire; and the guilty readily concur with the weak for a plain reason, because the vicious look upon folly as their frontier:

Jam proximus ardet

Ucalegon.

No wonder those who know ridicule belongs to them, find an inward confolation in moving it from themselves as far as they can; and it is never so far, as when they can get it fixed on

-the

the best characters. No wonder those who are Food for Satirifts should rail at them as creature's of prey; every beaft born for our ufe would be ready to call a man fo.

I know no remedy, unless people in our age would as little frequent the theatres, as they begin to do the churches; unless comedy were forfaken, fatire filent, and every man left to dỏ what seems good in his own eyes, as if there were no King, no Priest, no Poet, in Ifrael.

But I find myself obliged to touch a point, on which I must be more ferious; it well deferves I fhould: I mean the malicious application of the character of Timon, which, I will boldly fay, they would impute to the person the most different in the world from a Manhater, to the person whose taste and encouragement of wit have often been fhewn in the righteft place. The author of that epistle muft certainly think fo, if he has the fame opinion of his own merit as authors generally have; for he has been diftinguished by this very person.

Why, in God's name, must a Portrait, apparently collected from twenty different men, be applied to one only? Has it his eye? no, it very unlike. Has it his nofe or mouth? nó, they are totally differing. What then, I beseech you? Why, it has the mole on his chin. Very

is

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well;