LETTER IV.

TO SIR WILLIAM TRUMBULL.

March 12, 1713.

THOUGH HOUGH any thing you write is fure to be a pleafure to me, yet I must own your last letter made me uneafy; you really use a style of compliment, which I expect as little as I deferve it. I know 'tis a common opinion that a young scribbler is as ill pleased to hear truth as a young lady. From the moment one fets up for an author, one must be treated as ceremoniously, that is as unfaithfully,

As a King's favourite, or as a King.

This proceeding, joined to that natural vanity which first makes a man an author, is certainly enough to render him a coxcomb for life. But I must grant it as a juft judgment upon poets, that they whofe chief

pretence is Wit, should be treated as they themselves treat Fools, that is, be cajoled with praises. And, I believe, Poets are the only poor fellows in the world whom any body will flatter.

I would not be thought to fay this, as if the ob liging letter you fent me deferved this imputation, only it put me in mind of it; and I fancy one may apply to one's friend what Cæfar faid of his wife ; It was not fufficient that he knew her to be chafte • himself, but she should not be so much as fufpected.*

As to the wonderful difcoveries, and all the good news you are pleased to tell me of myself, I treat it, as you who are in the fecret, treat common news, as groundless reports of things at a distance; which I, who look into the true fprings of the affair, in my own breast, know to have no foundation at all. For Fame, though it be (as Milton finely calls it) the last infirmity of noble minds, is fcarce fo ftrong a temptation as to warrant our lofs of time here: it can never make us lie down contentedly on a death-bed (as fome of the Ancients are faid to have done with that thought). You, Sir, have yourself taught me, that an eafy fituation at that hour can proceed from no ambition less noble than that of an eternal felicity, which is unattainable by the strongest endeavours of the wit, but may be gained by the fincere intentions of the heart only. As in the next world, fo in this, the only folid bleffings are owing to the goodness of the mind, not the extent of the capacity; friendship here is an emanation from the fame fource as beatitude is there the fame benevolence and grateful difpofition that qualifies us for the one, if extended farther, makes us partakers of the other. The utmost point of my defires in my present state terminates in the fociety and good-will of worthy men, which I look upon as no ill earnest and foretaste of the fociety and alliance of happy fouls hereafter.

The continuance of your favours to me is what not only makes me happy, but causes me to set some

value

value upon myself as a part of your care. The instances I daily meet with of these agreeable awakenings of friendship are of too pleasing a nature not to be acknowledged whenever I think of you. I am

Your, etc.

LETTER V.

April 30, 1713.

I

HAVE been almoft every day employed in following your advice, and amufing myself in painting, in which I am moft particularly obliged to Mr. Jervas, who gives me daily instructions and examples. As to poetical affairs, I am content at present to be a bare looker-on, and from a practitioner turn an admirer, which is (as the world goes) not very ufual. Cato was not fo much the wonder of Rome in his days,

as

*These praises of Addison seem to be very fincere, and to have come from the heart, before any coldness and disgust had taken place betwixt them. Irritated with the fuccefs of this Tragedy, Dennis wrote a fevere criticifm on its plan and fable; and, as Dr. Johnson fays, "found and fhewed many faults: he found them with anger, but he found them with acuteness, such as ought to refcue his criticism from oblivion." He accordingly thought it worth republishing in his Life of Addison. "Pope," fays Johnfon," had now an opportunity of courting the friendship of Addison, by vilifying his old enemy, and could give refentment its full play, without appearing to revenge himself." He therefore published a "Narrative of the Madness of John Dennis ;" a per

formance

as he is of Britain in ours; and though all the foolish induftry poffible has been used to make it thought a party-play, yet what the author once faid of another the most properly in the world be applied to him, on this occafion;

may

Envy itself is dumb, in wonder loft,

And Factions ftrive, who fhall applaud him moft.

The numerous and violent claps of the Whig-party on the one side of the theatre, were echoed back by the Tories on the other; while the author fweated behind the scenes with concern to find their applause proceeding more from the hand than the head. This was the cafe too of the prologue writer, who was clapped into a stanch Whig, at almost every two lines. I believe you have heard, that after all the applauses of the oppofite faction, my Lord Bolingbroke fent for Booth, who played Cato, into the Box, between one of the acts, and prefented him with fifty guineas; in acknowledgment (as he expreffed it) for defending

the

formance which left the objections to the play in their full force, and therefore discovered more defire of vexing the critic than of defending the poet. Addison, who was no stranger to the world, probably faw the selfishness of Pope's friendship; and refolving that he should have the confequences of his officiousness to himself, informed Dennis, by Steele, that he was sorry for the infult, and that whenever he should think fit to answer his remarks, he would do it in a manner to which nothing could be objected.”

The Life of Dennis is given in the fifth volume of the Biographia Britannica, by Dr. Kippis, with much candor and impartiality. • Himfelf.

the cause of liberty fo well against a Perpetual Dictator*. The Whigs are unwilling to be distanced this way, and therefore defign a prefent to the fame Cato very speedily; in the mean time they are getting ready as good a sentence as the former on their fide: fo betwixt them, 'tis probable that Cato (as Dr. Garth expressed it) may have something to live upon, after he dies. I am

Your, etc.

LETTER VI.

FROM SIR WILLIAM TRUMBULL.

Easthamstead, Feb. 22, 1714-15.

AM fenfibly obliged, dear Sir, by your kind prefent of the Temple of Fame, into which you are already entered, and I dare prophecy for once (though I am not much given to it) that you will continue there, with those,

Who ever new, not fubject to decays,

Spread and grow brighter with the length of days.

There was nothing wanting to complete your obliging remembrance of me, but your accompanying it with your poem; your long abfence being much the feverest

*Bolingbroke evidently glanced at the power of the Duke of Marlborough. Quin exactly imitated, but did not equal Booth in playing this character.