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LETTERS

TO AND FROM

EDWARD BLOUNT, ESQ.

THE

HON. ROBERT DIGBY,

DR. ATTERBURY,

Bishop of ROCHESTER

MR. GAY, AND OTHERS.

VOL. VIII.

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Hatever ftudies on the one hand, or amusements on the other, it fhall be my fortune to fall into, I fhall be equally incapable of forgetting you in any of them. The task I undertook, though of weight enough in itself, has had a voluntary increase by the inlarging my design of the Notes; and the neceffity of confulting a number of Books has carried me to Oxford: but, I fear, thro' my Lord Harcourt's and Dr. Clarke's means, I fhall be more converfant with the pleasures and company of the place, than with the books and manuscripts of it.

I The Tranflation of Homer's Iliad.

P.

2 The notes on the Iliad were his own: Thofe on the Odyssey were Dr. Broome's. But they speak their respective Authors.

1

I find ftill more reafon to complain of the negli gence of the Geographers in their Maps of old Greece, fince I looked upon two or three more noted names in the public libraries here. But with all the care I am capable of, I have fome caufe to fear the engraver will prejudice me in a few fituations. I have been forced to write to him in fo high a ftyle, that were my epiftle intercepted, it would raife no fmall admiration in an ordinary man. There is scarce an order in it of less importance, than to remove fuch and fuch mountains, alter the courfe of fuch and fuch rivers, place a large city on fuch a coaft, and raze another country. I have fet bounds to the fea, and faid to the land, Thus far fhalt thou advance,

and no further. 3. In the mean time, 1, who talk and command at this rate, am in danger of lofing my horfe, and ftand in fome fear of a country justice. 4 To difarm me indeed may be but prudential, confidering what Armies I have at prefent on foot, and in my fervice; a hundred thousand Grecians are no contemptible body; for all that I can tell, they may be as formidable as four thousand Priefts; and they feem proper forces to fend against thofe in Barcelona. That fiegé deferves as fine a poem as the Iliad, and the machining part of poetry would be the jufter in it, as, they fay, the inhabitants expect Angels from heaven to their affiftance. May I venture to fay who am a Papist, and fay to you who are a Papist, that

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3 This relates to the Map of ancient Greece, laid down by our Author in his obfervations on the fecond Iliad.

P.

4 Some of the Laws were, at this time, put in force against the Papifts.

nothing is more aftonishing to me, than that people fo greatly warm'd with a fense of Liberty, fhould be capable of harbouring fuch weak fuperftition, and that fo much bravery and fo much folly can inhabit the fame breafts?

I could not but take a trip to London on the death of the Queen, mov'd, by the common curiofity of mankind, who leave their own bulinefs to be looking upon other mens. I thank God, that, as for myself, I am below all the accidents of ftate changes by my circumftances, and above them by my philofophy. Common charity of man to man, and universal goodwill to all, are the points I have moft at heart ;, and I am fure, thofe are not to be broken for the fake of any governors, or government. I am willing to hope the best, and what I more wifh than my own or any. particular man's advancement, is, that this turn may put an end entirely to the divifions of Whig and Tory; that the parties may love each other as well as I love them both, or at least hurt each other as little as I would either and that our own people may live as quietly as we fhall certainly let theirs; that is to say, that want of power itself in us may not be a furer prevention of harm, than want of will in them. I am fure, if all Whighs and all Tories had the spirit of one Roman Catholic that I know, it would be well for al Roman Catholics; and if all Roman Catholics had always had that fpirit, it had been well for all others; and we had never been charged with fo wicked a fpirit as that of Perfecution.

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I agree with you in my fentiments of the state of our nation fince this change: I find myself just in the

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