merit, as to reject what is due to it, and call that compliment, which is so short of your defert, that it is rather degrading than exalting you. But if compliment be the fmoke only of friendship, (as you fay,) however, you must allow there is no smoke but there is fome fire; and as the facrifice of incense offered to the Gods would not have been half so sweet to others, if it had not been for its fmoke; fo friendfhip, like love, cannot be without fome incenfe, to perfume the name it would praise and immortalize. But fince you fay you do not write to me to gain my praise, but my affection, pray how is it poffible to have the one without the other? we must admire before we love. You affirm, you would have me fo much your friend as to appear your enemy, and find out your faults rather than your perfections; but (my friend) that would be fo hard to do, that I, who love no difficulties, can't be perfuaded to it. Besides, the vanity of a fcribler is fuch, that he will never part with his own judgment to gratify another's; especially when he must take pains to do it: and though I am proud to be of your opinion, when you talk of thing or man but yourself, I cannot fuffer you to murder your fame with your own hand, without oppofing you; especially when you fay your last letter is the worst (fince the longest) you have favoured me with; which I therefore think the best; as the longest life (if a good one) is the best; as it yields the more variety, and is the more exemplary; as a chearful fummer's day, though longer than a dull one one in the winter, is lefs tedious and more entertaining. Therefore let but your friendship be like your letter, as lasting as it is agreeable, and it can never be tedious, but more acceptable and obliging to Your, etc. LETTER V. FROM MR. WYCHERLEY. April 7, 1705. I HAVE received your's of the fifth, wherein your modesty refuses the juft praises I give you, by which you lay claim to more, as a bishop gains his bishopric by saying he will not epifcopate; but I must confefs, whilst I displease you by commending you, I please myself; juft as incense is sweeter to the offerer than the deity to whom 'tis offered, by his being fo much above it: For indeed every man partakes of the praise he gives, when it is so justly given. As to my enquiry after your intrigues with the Mufes, you may allow me to make it, fince no old man can give fo young, fo great, and able a favourite of theirs, jealoufy. I am, in my enquiry, like old Sir Bernard Gafcoign, who used to fay, that when he was grown too old to have his vifits admitted alone by the ladies, he always took along with him a young man man to enfure his welcome to them: for had he come alone he had been rejected, only because his vifits were not scandalous to them. So I am (like an old rook, who is ruined by gaming) forced to live on the good fortune of the Pufhing young men, whose fancies are fo vigorous that they enfure their fuccefs in their adventures with the Mufes, by their ftrength of imagination. Your papers are fafe in my custody (you may be fure) from any one's theft but my own; for 'tis as dangerous to truft a fcribler with your wit, as a gamester with the cuftody of your money.-If you happen to come to town, you will make it more difficult for me to leave it, who am Your, etc. LETTER VI. April 30, 1795. I CANNOT contend with you: You must give me leave at once to wave all your compliments, and to collect only this in general from them, that your defign is to encourage me. But I feparate from all the reft that paragraph or two, in which you make me fo warm an offer of your friendship. Were I poffeffed of that, it would put an end to all those fpeeches with which you now make me blufh; and change them to wholefome advices, and free fenti ments, ments, which might make me wifer and happier. I know 'tis the general opinion, that friendship is beft contracted betwixt perfons of equal age; but I have fo much intereft to be of another mind, that you muft pardon me if I cannot forbear telling you a few notions of mine in oppofition to that opinion. In the first place 'tis obfervable, that the love we bear to our friends, is generally caufed by our finding the fame difpofitions in them, which we feel in ourselves. This is but felf-love at the bottom: whereas the affection betwixt people of different ages cannot well be fo, the inclinations of fuch being commonly various. The friendship of two young men is often occafioned by love of pleasure or voluptuoufness, each being defirous, for his own fake, of one to affift or encourage him in the courfes he purfues; as that of two old men is frequently on the fcore of fome profit, lucre, or defign upon others. Now, as a young man, who is lefs acquainted with the ways of the world, has in all probability lefs of intereft; and an old man, who may be weary of himself, has, or should have less of self-love; fo the friendship between them is the more likely to be true, and unmixed with too much felf-regard. One may add to this, that fuch a friendship is of greater use and advantage to both; for the old man will grow gay and agreeable to please the young one; and the young man more discreet and prudent by the help of the old one: fo it may prove a cure of thofe epidemical 3 mical diseases of age and youth, fournefs and madnefs. I hope you will not need many arguments to convince you of the poffibility of this; one alone abundantly fatisfies me, and convinces to the heart, which is, that' young as I am, and old as you are, I am your entirely affectionate, etc. I LETTER VII. June 23, 1705... SHOULD believe myself happy in your good opinion, but that you treat me fo much in a style of compliment. It hath been obferved of women, that they are more fubject in their youth to be touched with vanity, than men, on account of their being generally treated this way; but the weakest women are not more weak than that class of men, who are thought to pique themselves upon their Wit. The world is never wanting, when a coxcomb is accomplishing himself, to help to give him the finishing ftroke. Every man is apt to think his neighbour overftocked with vanity, yet I cannot but fancy there are certain times, when most people are in a disposition of being informed; and 'tis incredible what a vast good Mr. Wycherley was at this time about feventy years old, Mr. Pope under seventeen. |