More needs not; where acknowledg'a Merits reign,TM Praife is impertinent; and Cenfure vain,· 1 I This you'll take as a proof of my zeal at least, tho' it be none of my talent in Poetry., When you have read it over, I'll forgive you if you should not once in your life-time again think of it.

And now, Sir, for your Arabian Tales. Ill as I have been, almost ever fince they came to hand, I have read as much of them, as ever I fhall read while I live. In deed they do not please my tafte: they are writ with fo romantick an air, and, allowing for the difference of eastern manners, are yet, upon any fuppofition that can be made, of fo wild and abfurd a contrivance (at least to my northern understanding ) that I have not only no pleasure, but no patience, in perufing them. They are to me like the odd paintings on Indian fcreens, which at first glance may furprize and pleafe a little but, when you fix your eye intently upon them, they appear fo extravagant, difproportion'd, and monftrous, that they give a judicious eye, pain, and make him feek for relief from fome other object. Cheat C

:

They may furnith the mind with fome new images: but I think the purchase is made at too great an expencer for to read those two volumes through, liking them as little as I do, would be a terrible penance, and to read them with pleasure would be dangerous on the other fide, becaufe of the infection. I will never belicve, that you have any keen relifh of them, till I find you write worse than you do, which, I dare fay, Enever fhall. Who that Petit de la Croife is, the pretended

author of them 18, I cannot tell: but observing how full they are in the defcriptions of dress, furniture, &c. I cannot help thinking them the product of fome Wo man's imagination: and, believe me, I would do any thing but break with you, rather than be bound to read them over with attention.

I am forry that I was fo true a prophet in respect of the S. Sea, forry, I mean, as far as your lofs is cons

... 18 Not the pretended Author, but the real translator, from an Arabic MS of the tales, which is in the French King's library. What was tranflated in ten fmall Volumes, is not more than the tenth o part of the Original. The Eastern people have been always fal mous for this fort of Compofition: in which much fine morality is frequently conveyed; not indeed in a story always representing real life, but what the eastern fuperftitions made pass for such amongst the people. Their great genius for this kind of writing appears from these very tales. But the policy of fome of the later princes of the Eaft greatly hurt the task, by fetting all men upon composing them, to furnish matter for their coffee houses and places of refort; which were enjoined to give this entertainment to the people, with defign to divert them from politics, and matters of state. This Collection is fo ftrange a mediey of fenfe and nonfenfe, that one would be tempted to think it was "the work work of fome Coffeefrom good and bad. The contri⭑ vance he has invented of tying them together has led him into fuch a blunder, that after that one could not be furprized at any thing. The tales are supposed to be told to one of the Kings of Perfia of the Dynafty of the Saffanides, an ancient race before Mahomet, and yet the fcene of fome of them is laid in the Court of Harowa Alrafchid the 26th Chalif, and the 5th of the Race of the Abbafis des. Thefe are amongst the best, and, indeed, it is no wonder. He was one of the most magnificent of the Chalifs, and the greatest encourager of Letters; fo that it was natural for men of genius, in after times, to do this honour to his memory. But the Bishop talks of Petit de la Croife. M. Galland was the tranflator of the The name of the other is to the collection, called

man, who gathered indifferent it

the Perfan tales,

of which I have nothing to fay.

cern'd for in the general I ever was and still am of opinion, that had that project taken root and flourish'd, it would by degrees have overturn'd our conftitution. Three or four hundred millions was fuch a weight, that whichfoever way it had leaned, muft have born down all before it But of the dead we muft fpeak gently; and therefore, as Mr. Dryden fays fomewhere, Peace be to its Manes!

Let me add one reflection, to make you easy in your ill luck. Had you got all that you have loft beyond what you ventur'd, confider that your fuperfluous gains would have sprung from the ruin of several families that now want neceffaries! a thought, under which a good and good-natured man that grew rich by fuch means, could not, I perfuade myself, be perfectly eafy. Adieu, and believe me, ever

Your, &c.

LETTER VII.

From the Bishop of ROCHESTER,

March 26, 1721.

"OU are not yourself gladder you are well, than I

γου

am; especially fince I can please myself with the thought that when you had loft your health elsewhere, you recovered it here. May thefe lodgings never treat you worfe, nor you at any time have lefs reafon to be fond of them!

I thank you for the fight of your 19 Verfes, and with the freedom of an honest, tho' perhaps injudicious friend, muft tell you, that tho' I could like some of them, if they were any body's elfe but yours, yet as they are yours and to be own'd as fuch, I can scarce like any of them. Not but that the four first lines are good, espe cially the fecond couplet; and might, if followed by four others as good, give reputation to a writer of a lefs established fame: but from you I expect something of a more perfect kind, and which the oftener it is read, the more it will be admired. When you barely exceed other writers, you fall much beneath yourself: 'tis your misfortune now to write without a rival, and to be tempted by that means to be more careless, than you would otherwife be in your compofures.

Thus much I could not forbear saying, tho' I have a motion of confequence in the House of Lords to day, and must prepare for it. I am even with you for your ill paper; for I write upon worse, having no other at hand. I wish you the continuance of your health most heartily; and am ever

Yours, &c.

I have fent Dr. Arbuthnot 10 the Latin MS. which I could not find when you left me; and I am so angry at

19 Epitaph on Mr. Harcourt.

P.

20 Written by Huetius, bishop of Avranches. He was a mean reafoner; as may be seen by a vast collection of fanciful and extravagant conjectures, which he called a Demonftration; mixed up with much reading, which his friends called learning, and delivered (by the allowance of all) in good latin. This not being received for what he would give it, he composed a treatise of the weakness of the human understanding: a poor system of scepticism; indeed little other than an abstract from Sextus Ämpiricus.

the writer for his defign, and his inanner of executing it, that I could hardly forbear fending him a line of Virgil along with it. The chief Reafoner of that philofophic farce is a Gallo- Ligur, as he is call'd what that means in English or French, I can't fay but all he fays, is info loose and flippery and trickish a way of reasoning, that I could not forbear applying the passage of Virgil to him,

Vane Ligur, fruftaque animis elate fuperbis!

Nequicquam patrias tentafti lubricus artes

To be ferious, I hate to see a book gravely written, and in all the forms of argumentation, which proves, nothing, and which says nothing; and endeavours only to put us into a way of diftrusting our own faculties; and doubting whether the marks of truth and falfhood can in any cafe be diftinguifhed from each other. Could that bleffed point be made out (as it is a contradiction. in terms to fay it can) we fhould then be in the most uncomfortable and wretched ftate in the world; and I would in that cafe be glad to exchange my Reason, withi a dog for his Inftinct, to-morrow.

I ble in the inclos

Cannot but fufpect myself of being very unreafona

Your friendship draws this trouble on you. I may