THE EARL OF ORRERY TO MR. POPE.

I

SIR,

MARSTON, OCT. 4, 1738.

AM more and more convinced that your letters are neither lost nor burnt; but who the dean means by a safe hand in Ireland is beyond my power of guessing, though I am particularly acquainted with most, if not all, of his friends. As I know you had the recovery of those letters at heart, I took more than ordinary pains to find out where they were; but my inquiries were to no purpose; and, I fear, whoever has them is too tenacious of them to discover where they lie. "Mrs. Whiteway did assure 66 me she had not one of them; and seemed to be "under great uneasiness, that you should imagine they were left with her. She likewise told me "she had stopped the dean's letter which gave you "that information, but believed he would write such "another; and therefore desired me to assure you, " from her, that she was totally ignorant where they "were."

You may say what you please, either to the dean or any other person, of what I have told you. I am ready to testify it; and I think it ought to be known, "That the dean says they are delivered ❝into a safe hand; and Mrs. Whiteway* declares "she

This lady afterward gave Mr. Pope the strongest assurances that she had used her utmost endeavours to prevent the publication; nay, went so far as to secrete the book till it was com

manded

"she has them not. The consequence of their be"ing hereafter published may give uneasiness to "some of your friends, and of course to you: "so I would do all in my power to make you entirely "easy in that point."

This is the first time that I have put pen to paper since my late misfortune; and I should say (as an excuse for this letter) that it has cost me some pain, did it not allow me an opportunity to assure you, that I am,

Dear sir,

With the truest esteem,

Your very faithful and obedient servant,

ORRERY.

MR. POPE TO MR. ALLEN.

My vexation about Deane Swift's proceeding has

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fretted and employed me a great deal, in writing to Ireland, and trying all the means possible to retard it; for it is put past preventing, by his having (without my consent, or so much as letting me see the book,) printed most of it.-They at last promise me to send me the copy, and that I may correct and expunge what I will. This last would be of some

manded from her, and delivered to the Dublin printer: whereupon her son-in-law, Deane Swift, esq., insisted upon writing a preface, to justify Mr. Pope from having any knowledge of it, and to lay it on the corrupt practices of the printers in London; but this Mr. Pope would not agree to, as not knowing the truth of the fact.

use,

use; but I dare not even do this, for they would say I revised it. And the bookseller writes, that he has been at great charge, &c. However, the dean, upon all I have said and written about it, has ordered him to submit to any expunction I insist upon this is all I can obtain, and I know not whether to make any use of it or not. But as to your apprehension, that any suspicion may arise of my being anywise consenting or concerned in it, I have the pleasure to tell you, the whole thing is so circumstanced and so plain, that it can never be the case. I shall be very desirous to see what the letters are at all events; and I think that must determine my future measures; for till then I can judge nothing. The excessive earnestness the dean has been in for publishing them, makes me hope they are castigated in some degree, or he must be totally deprived of his understanding. They now offer to send me the originals [which have been so long detained]; and I will accept of them, (though they have done their job,) that they may not have them to produce against me, in case there be any offensive passages in them. If you can give me any advice, do. I wish I could show you what the dean's people, the women, and the bookseller, have done and writ, on my sending an absolute negative, and on the agency I have employed of some gentlemen to stop it, as well as threats of law, &c. The whole thing is too manifest to admit of any doubt in any man: how long this thing has been working; how many tricks have been played with the dean's papers, how they were secreted from him from time to time, while they feared his not complying with such a measure; and how, finding his weakness increase, they have at VOL. XIX.

L

last

last made him the instrument himself for their private profit; whereas, I believe, before, they only intended to do this after his death.

FROM MR. POPE *.

DEAREST SIR,

MAY 17, 1739.

EVERY time I see your hand, it is the greatest satisfaction that any writing can give me; and I am in proportion grieved to find, that several of my letters to testify it to you miscarry; and you ask me the same questions again which I prolixly have answered before. Your last, which was delivered me by Mr. Swift, inquires, where and how is lord Bolingbroke? who, in a paragraph in my last, under his own hand, gave you an account of himself; and I employed almost a whole letter on his affairs afterward. He has sold Dawley for twenty-six thousand pounds, much to his own satisfaction. His plan of life is now a very agreeable one in the finest country of France, divided between study and exercise for he still reads or writes five or six hours a day, and generally hunts twice a week. He has the whole forest of Fontainbleau at his command, with the king's stables and dogs, &c., his lady's son-inlaw being governor of that place. She resides most part of the year with my lord, at a large house they

The last letter he ever wrote to the dean.

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have hired; and the rest with her daughter, who is abbess of a royal convent in the neighbourhood.

I never saw him in stronger health or in better humour with his friends, or more indifferent and dispassionate to his enemies. He is seriously setupon writing some parts of the history of his times, which he has begun by a noble introduction, presenting a view of the whole state of Europe, from the Pyrenean treaty. He has hence deduced a summary sketch of the natural and incidental interests of each kingdom; and how they have varied from, or approached to, the true politicks of each, in the several administrations to this time. The history itself will be particular only on such facts and anecdotes as he personally knew, or produces vouchers for, both from home and abroad. This puts into my mind to tell you a fear he expressed lately to me, that some facts in your History of the Queen's Last Years (which he read here with me in 1727) are not exactly stated, and that he may be obliged to vary from them, in relation, I believe, to the conduct of the earl of Oxford, of which great care surely should be taken. And he told me, that, when he saw you in 1727, he made you observe them; and that you promised you would take care.

We very often commemorated you during the five months we lived together at Twickenham. At which place could I see you again, as I may hope to see him, I would envy no country in the world; and think, not Dublin only, but France and Italy, not worth the visiting once more in my life. The mention of travelling introduces your old acquaintance Mr. Jervas, who went to Rome and Naples purely in search of health. An asthma has reduced his body,