more for fear of the worst of traitors, our friends and admirers), my poem, I say, will show you what a distinguished age we lived in? Your name is in it, with some others under a mark of such ignominy as you will not much grieve to wear in that company. Adieu, and God bless you, and give you health and spirits. Whether thou choose Cervantes' serious air; These two verses are over and above what I have said of you in the * poem. Adieu. TO MR POPE. October 30, 1727. THE first letter I writ after my landing was to Mr Gay, but it would have been wiser to direct it to Tonson or Lintot, to whom I believe his lodgings are better known than to the runners of the post-office. In that letter you will find what a quick change I made in seven days from London to the deanery, through many nations and languages unknown to the civilized world. And I have often reflected in how few hours, with a swift horse or a strong gale, a man may come among a people as unknown to him as the antipodes. If I did not *We see by this, with what judgment Pope corrected and erased.-WARBURTON. know you more by your conversation and kindness than by your letter, I might be base enough to suspect, that, in point of friendship, you acted like some philosophers, who writ much better upon virtue, than they practised it. In answer, I can only swear that you have taught me to dream, which I had not done in twelve years further than by inexpressible nonsense; but now I can every night distinctly see Twitenham, and the Grotto, and Dawley, and many other et ceteras, and it is but three nights since I beat Mrs Pope. I must needs confess, that the pleasure I take in thinking on you, is very much lessened by the pain I am in about your health : you pay dearly for the great talents God has given you; and for the consequences of them in the esteem and distinction you receive from mankind, unless you can provide a tolerable stock of health; in which pursuit I cannot much commend your conduct, but rather entreat you would mend it by following the advice of my Lord Bolingbroke, and your other physicians. When you talked of cups and impressions, it came into my head to imitate you in quoting scripture, not to your advantage; I mean what was said to David by one of his brothers: "I knew thy pride and the naughtiness of thy "heart;" I remember when it grieved your soul to see me pay a penny more than my club at an inn, when you had maintained me three months at bed and board; for which if I had dealt with you in the Smithfield way, it would have cost me a hundred pounds, for I live worse here upon more. Did you ever consider that I am for life almost twice as rich as you, and pay no rent, and drink French wine twice as cheap as you do port, and have neither coach, chair, nor mother? As to the world, I think you ought to say to it with St Paul, if we have sown unto you spiritual things, is it a great thing if we shall reap your carnal things? this is more proper still if you consider the French word spirituel, in which sense the world ought to pay you better than they do. If you made me a present of a thousand pounds, I would not allow myself to be in your debt; and if I made you a present of two, I would not allow myself to be out of it. But I have not half your pride: witness what Mr Gay says in his letter, that I was censured for begging presents, though I limited them to ten shillings. I see no reason (at least my friendship and vanity see none), why you should not give me a visit, when you shall happen to be disengaged: I will send a person to Chester to take care of you, and you shall be used by the best folks we have here, as well as civility and good nature can contrive; I believe local motion will be no ill physic, and I will have your coming inscribed on my tomb, and recorded in never-dying verse. I thank Mrs Pope for her prayers, but I know the mystery. A person of my acquaintance who used to correspond with the last great Duke of Tuscany, showing one of the duke's letters to a friend, and professing great sense of his highness's friendship, read this passage out of the letter, I would give one of my fingers to procure your real good. The person to whom this was read, and who knew the duke well, said, the meaning of real good, was only that the other might turn a good catholic. Pray ask Mrs Pope whether this story is applicable to her and me? I pray God bless her, for I am sure she is a good Christian, and (which is almost as rare) a good woman. Adieu. TO MR GAY. Dublin, Nov. 27, 1727. I ENTIRELY approve your refusal of that employment, and your writing to the queen. I am perfectly confident you have a keen enemy in the ministry.* God forgive him, but not till he puts himself in a state to be forgiven. Upon reasoning with myself, I should hope they are gone too far to discard you quite, and that they will give you something; which, although much less than they ought, will be (as far as it is worth) better circumstantiated: and since you already just live, a middling help will make you just tolerable. Your lateness in life (as you so soon call it) might be improper to begin the world with, but almost the eldest men may hope to see changes in a court. A minister is always seventy you are thirty years younger; and consider, Cromwell himself did not begin to appear till he was older than you. I beg you will be thrifty, and learn to value a shilling, which Dr Birch said was a serious thing. Get a stronger fence about your 10001. and throw the inner fence into the heap, and be advised by your Twickenham landlord and me about an annuity. You are the most refractory, honest, good-natured man, I ever have known; I could argue out this paper.-I am very glad your opera is finished, and hope your friends will join the readier to make it succeed, because your are ill used by others. * Sir Robert Walpole. I have known courts these thirty-six years, and know they differ; but in some things they are extremely constant: First, in the trite old maxim of a minister's never forgiving those he hath injured: Secondly, in the insincerity of those who would be thought the best friends: Thirdly, in the love of fawning, cringing, and tale-bearing: Fourthly, in sacrificing those whom we really wish well, to a point of interest, or intrigue: Fifthly, in keeping every thing worth taking, for those who can do service or disservice.* Now why does not Pope publish his Dulness? the rogues he marks will die of themselves in peace, and so will his friends, and so there will be neither punishment nor reward. Pray inquire how my Lord St John does; there is no man's health in England I am more concerned about than his. I wonder whether you begin to taste the pleasure of independency? or whether you do not sometimes leer upon the court, oculo retorto? Will you not think of an annuity, when you are two years older, and have doubled your purchase-money? Have you dedicated your opera, and got the usual dedication fee of twenty guineas? How is the Doctor? does he not chide that you never called upon him for hints? Is my Lord Bolingbroke, at the moment I am writing, a planter, a philosopher, or a writer? Is Mr Pulteney in expectation of a son, or my Lord Oxford of a new old manuscript? I bought your opera to day for sixpence, a cursed print. I find there is neither dedication nor pre * Let every expectant of preferment in church and state carefully attend to, and remember the five reflections of a man well versed in courts.-Dr WARTON. |