A LETTER to a NOBLE LORD. On occafion of fome Libels written and propagated at Court, in the Year 1732-3. Nov. 30, 1733. MY LORD, YOU OUR Lordship's b epistle has been publish'd fome days, but I had not the pleafure and pain of seeing it till yesterday: Pain, to think your Lordship should attack me at all; Pleasure, to find that you can attack me fo weakly. As I want not the humility, to think myself in every way but one your inferiour, it seems but reasonable that I should take the only method either of felf-defence or retaliation, that 2 This Letter (which was first printed in the year 1733) bears the fame place in our Author's profe that the Epiftle to Dr. Arbuthnot does in his poetry. They are both Apologetical, repelling the libellous flanders on his Reputation with this difference, that the Epiftle to Dr. Arbuthnot, his friend, was chiefly directed against Grub-freet Writers, and this letter to the Noble Lord, his enemy, against Court Scriblers. For the reft, they are both Mafter-pieces in their kinds; That in verfe, more grave, moral, and fublime; This in profe, more lively, critical, and pointed; but equally conducive to what he had moft at heart, the vindication of his moral Character: the only thing he thought worth his care in literary altercations; and the first thing he would expect from the good offices of a surviving Friend. b Entitled, An Epistle to a Doctor of Divinity from a Nobleman at Hampton-Court. Aug. 28, 1733, and printed the November following for J. Roberts, Fol. is and power. is left me against a perfon of your quality And as by your choice of this weapon, your pen, you generously (and modeftly too, no doubt) meant to put yourself upon a level with me; I will as foon believe that your Lordship would give a wound to a man unarm'd, as that you would deny me the use of it in my own defence. I presume you will allow me to take the fame liberty in my answer to fo candid, polite, and ingenious a Nobleman, which your Lordfhip took in yours, to fo grave, religious, and refpectable a clergyman : As you answered his Latin in English, permit me to answer your Verfe in Profe. And tho' your Lordship's reafons for not writing in Latin, might be stronger than mine for not writing in Verfe, yet I may plead Two good ones, for this conduct: the one that I want the Talent of fpinning a thousand lines in a Day d (which, I think, is as much Time as this fubject deferves) and the other, that I take your Lordship's Verfe to be as much Profe as this letter. But no doubt it was your choice, in writing to a friend, to renounce all the pomp of Poetry, and give us this excellent model of the familiar. c Dr. S. d And Pope with juftice of fuch lines may fay, His Lordflip fpins a thousand in a day. Epist. p. 6. When When I confider the great difference betwixt the rank your Lordship holds in the World, and the rank which your writings are like to hold in the learned world, I prefume that distinction of style is but neceffary, which you will see obferv'd thro' this letter. When I speak of you, my Lord, it will be with all the deference due to the inequality which Fortune has made between you and myself: but when I fpeak of your writings, my Lord, I must, I can do nothing but trifle. I should be obliged indeed to leffen this ReSpect, if all the Nobility (and especially the elder brothers) are but so many hereditary fools e, if the privilege of Lords be to want brains f, if noblemen can hardly write or read g, if all their bufinefs is but to dress and voteh, and all their employment in court, to tell lies, flatter in public, flander in private, be falfe to each other, and follow nothing but self-interest i. Bless me, • That to good blood by old prescriptive rules Nor wonder that my Brain no more affords, 8 And when you fee me fairly write my name; The growth of each, few truths, and many lies: Few to each other, all to one point true; p. ult. my my Lord, what an account is this you give of them? and what would have been faid of me, had I immolated, in this manner, the whole body of the Nobility, at the stall of a well-fed Prebendary? Were it the mere Excess of your Lordship's Wit, that carried you thus triumphantly over all the bounds of decency, I might confider your Lordship on your Pegasus, as a sprightly hunter on a mettled horfe; and while you were trampling down all our works, patiently fuffer the injury, in pure admiration of the Noble Sport. But should the cafe be quite otherwise, should your Lordship be only like a Boy that is run away with; and run away with by a Very Foal; really common charity, as well as respect for a noble family, would oblige me to stop your career, and to help you down from this PegaJus. Surely the little praise of a Writer should be a thing below your ambition: You, who were no fooner born, but in the lap of the Graces; no fooner at school, but in the arms of the Muses; no fooner in the World, but you practis'd all the fkill of it; no fooner in the Court, but you poffefs'd all the art of it! Unrival'd as you are, in making a figure, and in making a speech, methinks, my Lord, you may well give up the poor talent of turning a Diftich. And why this fondness fondness for Poetry? Profe admits of the two excellencies you most admire, Diction and Fiction: It admits of the talents you chiefly poffefs, a most fertile invention, and most florid expreffion; it is with profe, nay the plainest profe, that you best could teach our nobility to vote, which you justly observe, is half at least of their business k: And, give me leave to prophefy, it is to your talent in profe, and not in verse, to your speaking, not your writing, to your art at court, not your art of poetry, that your Lordship muft owe your future figure in the world. My Lord, whatever your imagine, this is the advice of a Friend, and one who remembers he formerly had the honour of fome profeffion of Friendship from you: Whatever was his real Share in it, whether fmall or great, yet as your Lordship could never have had the least Loss by continuing it, or the leaft Intereft by withdrawit; the misfortune of lofing it, I fear, must have been owing to his own deficiency or neglect. But as to any actual fault which deserved to forfeit it in such a degree, he protests he is to this day guiltless and ignorant. It could at most be but a fault of omiffion; but indeed by omiffions, men of your Lordship's uncommon merit * All their bus'nefs is to dress, and vote. VOL. VIII. S may |