with 'em fo that you do not come off with a bare faving game (as you call it) but have gain'd so much credit at first, that you must needs fupport it to the laft: fince you fet up with fo great a stock of good fenfe, judgment, and wit, that your judgment enfures all that your wit ventures at. The falt of

your wit has been enough to give a relish to the whole infipid hotch-potch it is mingled with; and you will make Jacob's Ladder raife you to immortality, by which others are turn'd off shamefully to their damnation (for poetic thieves as they are) who think to be fav'd by others good works, how faulty foever their own are: but the coffee-house wits, or rather anti-wits the critics, prove their judgments by approving your wit; and even the news mongers and poets will own, you have more invention than they; nay, the detracters or the envious, who never fpeak well of any body (not even of those they think well of in their abfence) yet will give you even in your abfence their good word; and the critics only hate you, for being forced to speak well of you whether they will or no: All this is true upon the word of

Your, &c.

M

LETTER XXI.

From Mr. WY CHERLE Y.

Aug. 11, 1709.

Y letters, fo much inferior to yours, can only make up their fcarcity of fenfe by their number of lines; which is like the Spaniards paying a debt of gold with a load of brafs money. be a plain dealer, I muft tell you, I will revenge the raillery of your letters by printing them as Dennis

But to

did mine) without your knowledge too, which would be a revenge upon your judgment for the raillery of your wit; for fome dull rogues (that is the most in the world) might be fuch fools as to think what you faid of me was in earnest: It is not the first time, your great wits have gain'd reputation by their paradoxical or ironical praises; your forefathers have done it, Erafmus and others. For all mankind who know me must confefs, he must be no ordinary genius, or little friend, who can find out any thing to commend in me seriously; who have given no fign of my judgment but my opinion of yours, nor mark of my wit, but my leaving off writing to the public now you are beginning to fhew the world what you can do by yours: whose wit is as fpiritual as your judgment infallible: in whofe judgment I have an implicit faith, and shall always fubfcribe to it to fave my works, in this world, from the flames and damnation. Pray, prefent my moft humble fervice to Sir William Trumbull; for whom and whofe judgment I have fo profound a refpect, that his example had almost made me marry, more than my nephew's ill carriage to me; having once refolv❜d to have revenged myself upon him by my marriage, but now am refolv'd to make my revenge greater upon him by His marriage.

I

LETTER XXII.

From Mr. WYCHERLEY.

April 1, 1710.

Have had yours of the 30th of the laft month, which is kinder than I defire it should be, fince it tells me you could be better pleas'd to be fick again in Town in my company, than to be well in the

Country

Country without it; and that you are more impatient to be depriv'd of happiness than of health. Yet, my dear friend, fet raillery or compliment afide, I can bear your absence (which procures your health and eafe) better than I can your company when you are in pain: for I cannot fee you so without being fo too. Your love to the country I do not doubt, nor do you (I hope) my love to it or you, fince there I can enjoy your company without seeing you in pain to give me fatisfaction and pleafure; there I can have you without rivals or disturbers; without the too civil, or the too rude: without the noise of the loud, or the cenfure of the filent: and wou'd rather have you abuse me there with the truth, than at this diftance with your compliment: fince now, your business of a friend, and kindness to a friend, is by finding fault with his faults, and mending them by your obliging feverity. I hope (in point of your good-nature) you will have no cruel charity for thofe papers of mine, you are fo willing to be troubled with; which I take most infinitely kind of you, and shall acknowledge with gratitude as long as I live. No friend can do more for his friend than preferving his reputation (nay, not by preferving his life) fince by preferving his life he can only make him live about three core or fourfcore years; but by preferving his reputation, he can make him live as long as the world lafts; so fave him from damning, when he is gone to the devil. Therefore, I pray, condemn me in private, as the Thieves do their accomplices in Newgate, to fave them from condemnation by the public. Be moft kindly unmerciful to my poetical faults, and do with my papers, as you country-gentlemen do with your trees, flash, cut, and lop off the excrefcencies, and dead parts of my wither'd bays, that the little remainder may live the longer, and increase VOL. VII.

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the

the value of them by diminishing the number. I have troubled you with my papers rather to give you pain than pleasure, notwithstanding your compliment, which fays you take the trouble kindly: fuch is your generofity to your friends, that you take it kindly to be defired by them to do them a kindness; and you think it done to you, when they give you an opportunity to do it them. Wherefore you may be fure to be troubled with my letters out of inte reft, if not kindness; fince mine to you will procure yours to me: fo that I write to you more for my own fake than yours; less to make you think I write well, than to learn from you to write better. Thus you fee interest in my kindness, which is like the friendship of the world, rather to make a friend than be a friend; but I am yours, as a true Plaindealer.

I

LETTER XXIII.

4

From Mr. WY CHERLE Y.

April 11, 1710.

F I can do part of my business at Shrewsbury in a fortnight's time (which I propofe to do) I will be foon after with you, and trouble you with my company, for the remainder of the fummer: in the mean time I beg you to give yourself the pains of altering, or leaving out what you think fuperfluous in my papers, that I may endeavour to print fuch a number of them as you and I fhall think fit, about Michaelmas next. In order to which (my dear friend) I beg you to be fo kind to me, as to be fevere to them; that the critics may be less fo; for I had rather be condemn'd by my friend in private,

5

1

than

than expos'd to my foes in public, the critics, or common judges, who are made fuch by having been old offenders themselves. Pray, believe I have as much faith in your friendship and fincerity, as I have deference to your judgment; and as the best mark of a friend is telling his friends his faults in private, fo the next is concealing them from the public, 'till they are fit to appear. In the mean time I am not a little fenfible of the great kindness you do me, in the trouble you take for me, in putting my Rhimes in tune, fince good founds fet off often ill fenfe, as the Italian fongs, whofe good airs, with the worst words or meaning, make the beft mufic; fo by your tuning my Welch harp, my rough fense may be the lefs offenfive to the nicer ears of those critics, who deal more in found than sense. Pray then take pity at once both of my readers and me, in shortning my barren abundance, and increafing their patience by it, as well as the obligations I have to you: And fince no madrigaller can entertain the head, unlefs he pleases the ear; and fince the crowded Operas have left the beft Comedies with the leaft audiences, 'tis a fign found can prevail over sense; therefore foften' my words, and ftrengthen my sense,

and

Eris mihi magnus Apollo.

I

LETTER XXIV.

April 15, 1710.

Receiv'd your most extreme kind' letter but just now. It found me over those papers you mention, which have been my employment ever fince Eafter-monday: I hope before Michaelmas to have discharg'd my tafk; which, upon the word of a

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friend,