TO MR WALLIS. Dublin, April 8, 1727. SIR, I AM just going for England, and must desire you to be my proxy at the bishop's visitation. I find there is likewise a triennial visitation, and think the enclosed may serve for both, with your wise management. The ladies are with me, being now come to live at the deanery for this summer. You have their service, and so has Mrs Wallis, as well as mine. I reckon you are now deep in mire and mortar, and are preparing to live seven years hence. I have been plagued with the roguery of my deanery proctor, whom I have discharged. I believe I am worse for him six hundred pounds, and his brother is not much better. I wish you had been at my elbow to advise one, for you are fitter for the world *than I am. I hope to come safe back, and then to have done with England. I am ever yours, &c. MR POPE TO W. FORTESCUE, ESQ. DEAR SIR, Twit'nam, May 1, 1727. DR SWIFT is come into England, who is now with me, and with whom I am to ramble again to Lord Oxford's and Lord Bathurst's, and other places. Dr Arbuthnot has led him a course through the town, with Lord Chesterfield, Mr Pulteney, &c. Lord Peterborow and Lord Harcourt propose to carry him to Sir R. Walpole, and I to Mrs Howard, &c. I wish you were here to know him.* I have just now a very ill-timed misfortune, a lame thigh, which keeps me from these parties; but I hope, since so many of my friends' prayers are on this occasion joined to my own, that I may be blessed with a speedy recovery, and make one amongst them. Many good wishes of mine attend you. May no similar accident, such as a fall from your horse by day, or a sprain in your back by night, retard your return to us! Your faithful and ever affectionate servant, A. POPE. TO DR SHERIDAN. London, May 13, 1727. THIS goes by a private hand, for my writing is too much known, and my letters often stopped and opened. I had yours of the 4th instant, and it is the only one I have received out of Ireland, since I left you. I hardly thought our friend would be in danger by a cold: I am of opinion she should be generally in the country, and only now and then * In a subsequent letter, May 16, 1727, Mr Pope tells Mr Fortescue, "There is nobody with me but the Dean of St Patrick's, who would be hardly here if he were not the best natured and indulgent man I know; it is so melancholy a way of passing his time. I could be glad to see you, if you have a day of leisure, and indeed there are few friends to whom I could make this request." visit the town. We are here in a strange situation; a firm settled resolution to assault the present administration, and break it if possible. * It is certain that Walpole is peevish and disconcerted, stoops to the vilest offices of hireling scoundrels to write Billingsgate of the lowest and most prostitute kind, and has none but beasts and blockheads for his penmen, whom he pays in ready guineas very liberally. I am in high displeasure with him and his partisans: a great man, who was very kind to me last year, doth not take the least notice of me at the prince's court, and there hath not been one of them to see me. I am advised by all my friends not to go to France (as I intended for two months) for fear of their vengeance in a manner which they cannot execute here.-I reckon there will be a warm winter, wherein my comfort is, I shall have no concern. I desire you will read this letter to none but our two friends and Mr P; his cousin with the red ribbon inquired very kindly after him.—I hear no news about your bishops, further than that the lord-lieutenant stickles to have them of Ireland, which Walpole always is averse from, but does not think it worth his trouble to exert his credit on such trifles. The dispute about a war or no war still continues, and the major part inclines to the latter, although ten thousand men are ordered to Holland. But this will bring such an addition to our debts, that it will give great advantages against those in power, in the next sessions. Walpole laughs at all this, but not so heartily as he used. I have at last seen the princess† twice this week by her own *This alludes to the coalition of Bolingbroke and Pulteney. + Caroline, Princess of Wales, afterward queen, consort of George IL-H. my commands; she retains her old civility, and I old freedom; she charges me without ceremony to be author of a bad book,* though I told her how angry the ministry were; but she assures me, that both she and the prince were very well pleased with every particular; but I disown the whole affair, as you know I very well might, only gave her leave, since she liked the book, to suppose what author she pleased. You will wonder to find me say so much of politics, but I keep very bad company, who are full of nothing else. Pray be very careful of your charge, or I shall order my lodgers the bulk of their glasses, and the number of their bottles. I stole this time to write to you, having very little to spare. I go as soon as possible to the country, and shall rarely sce this town. My service to all friends. I desire you will send me six sets of the edition of the Drapiers, by the first convenience of any friend or acquaintance that comes hither. FROM LORD BOLINGBROKE, May 18, 1727. I LIVED on Tuesday with you and Mr Pope. Yesterday another of my friends found his way to this retreat, and I shall pass this day alone. Would to God my whole life could be divided in the same manner; two-thirds to friendship, one • Gulliver's Travels.-H. + Dawley.-B. third to myself, and not a moment of it to the world. * In the epistle, a part of which you showed me, mention is made of the author of Three Occasional Letters, a person entirely unknown. I would have you insinuate there, that the only reason Walpole can have had to ascribe them to a particular person, is the authority of one of his spies, who wriggles himself into the company of those who neither love, esteem, nor fear the minister, that he may report, not what he hears (since no man speaks with any freedom before him) but what he guesses. Friday Morning. I was interrupted yesterday when I least expected it; and I am going to-day to London, where I hear that my wife is not very well. Let me know how "Mrs Pope does. I had a hint or two more for you; but they have slipped out of my memory. Do not forget the sixty nor the twenty guineas, nor the min- character transferred into the administration. Adieu, I am ever faithfully yours, my dear and reverend dean. I embrace Pope. I TO ARCHBISHOP KING.† MY LORD, May 18, 1727. UNDERSTAND, by some letters just come to Printed in his lordship's works. They were first published ' in February 1726.---H. + It is painful to observe, from the following letter, the un |