LETTER XII. FROM MR. WYCHERLEY. Nov. 11, 1707. RECEIVED yours of the 9th yesterday, which has (like the rest of your letters) at once pleased and inftructed me; fo that I affure you, you can no more write too much to your absent friends, than speak too much to the present. This is a truth that all men own, who have either feen your writings, or heard your discourse; enough to make others fhew their judgment, in ceafing to write or talk, especially to you, or in your company. However, I speak or write to you, not to please you, but myself; fince I provoke your anfwers; which, whilft they humble me, give me vanity; though I am leffened by you, even when you commend me; since you commend my little fenfe with fo much more of yours, that you put me out of countenance, whilft you would keep me in it. So that you have found a way (against the custom of great wits) to fhew even a great deal of good-nature with a great deal of good fenfe. I thank you for the book you promised me, by which I find you would not only correct my lines, life. but my As to the damned verses I entrusted you with, I hope you will let them undergo your purgatory, to fave them from other people's damning them: fince the the critics, who are generally the first damned in this life, like the damned below, never leave to bring thofe above them under their own circumftances. I beg you to peruse my papers, and select what you think best or most tolerable, and look over them again; for I refolve fuddenly to print fome of them, as a hardened old gamefter will (in fpite of all former ill ufage by fortune) push on an ill hand in expect ation of recovering himself; especially fince I have fuch a Croupier or Second to ftand by me as Mr. Pope. LETTER XIII. Nov. 20, 1707. MR. Englefyld being upon his journey to London, tells me I must write to you by him, which I do, not more to comply with his defire, than to gratify my own; though I did it fo lately by the meffenger you fent hither: I take it too as an opportunity of fending you the fair copy of the poem on Dulnefs, which was not then finished, and which I fhould not care to hazard by the common poft. Mr. Englefyld is ignorant of the contents, and I hope your prudence • The original of it in blots, and with figures of the References from copy to copy, in Mr. Pope's hand, is yet extant, among other fuch Brouillons of Mr. Wycheyley's Poems, corrected by him. W. prudence will let him remain fo, for my fake no less than your own: fince, if you should reveal any thing of this nature, it would be no wonder reports should be raised, and there are fome (I fear) who would be ready to improve them to my difadvantage. I am forry you told the great man, whom you met in the court of requests, that your papers were in my hands; no man alive fhall ever know any fuch thing from me; and I give you this warning befides, that though yourself fhould fay I had any ways affifted you, I am notwithstanding refolved to deny it. The method of the copy I fend you is very different from what it was, and much more regular: for the better help of your memory, I defire you to com. pare it by the figures in the margin, answering to the fame in this letter. The poem is now divided into four parts, marked with the literal figures 1. 2. 3. 4. The first contains the Praise of Dulness, and fhews how upon feveral fuppofitions it paffes for 1. religion. 2. philofophy. 3. example. 4. wit. and 5. the cause of wit, and the end of it. The fecond part contains the Advantages of Dulnefs; 1ft, in bufinefs; and 2dly, at Court, where the fimilitudes of the Bias of a bowl, and the Weights of a clock, are directly tending to the subject, though introduced before in a place where there was no mention made of thofe advantages (which was your only objection to my adding them). The third contains the happiness of Dulnefs in all stations, and fhews in a great many particulars, culars, that it is fo fortunate as to be efteemed fome good quality or other in all forts of people; that it is thought quiet, fenfe, caution, policy, prudence, majefty, valour, circumfpection, honefty, &c. The fourth part I have wholly added, as a climax which fums up all the praise, advantage, and happiness of Dulness in a few words, and strengthens them by the oppofition of the difgrace, disadvantage, and unhappiness of Wit, with which it concludes P. Though the whole be as fhort again as at first, there is not one thought omitted, but what is a repetition of fomething in your first volume, or in this very paper: Some thoughts are contracted, where they feemed encompaffed with too many words; and some new expressed or added, where I thought there wanted heightening, (as you'll fee particularly in the Simile of the clock-weights ',) and the verfification through P This is totally omitted in the prefent Edition: Some of the lines are thefe: "Thus Dulness, the fafe opiate of the mind, Fit for all ftations, and in each content, Is fatisfy'd, fecure, and innocent; No pains it takes, and no offence it gives, It was originally thus expreffed, "As clocks run fafteft when most lead is on." in a letter of Mr. Pope's to Mr. Wycherley, dated April 3, 1705, and in a Paper of verses of his, To the Author of a Poem called Succeffio, which got out in a Mifcellany in 1712, three years before Mr. Wycherley died, and two after he had laid afide the whole defign of publishing any poems. P. Thefe throughout is, I believe, fuch as nobody can be fhocked at. The repeated permiffions you give me of dealing freely with you, will (I hope) excuse what I have done for if I have not spared you when I thought severity would do you a kindness, I have not mangled you where I thought there was no abfolute need of amputation. As to particulars, I can fatisfy you better when we meet; in the mean time pray write to me when you can, you cannot too often. LETTER XIV. FROM MR. WYCHERLEY. Nov. 22, 1707. γου ou may fee by my ftyle, I had the happiness and fatisfaction to receive yesterday, by the hands of Mr. Englefyld, your extreme kind and obliging letter, the 20th of this month; which, like all the rest of yours, did at once mortify me, and make me vain; fince it tells me, with fo much more wit, sense, and kindness than mine can exprefs, that my letters are always welcome to you. So that even whilft your kindness invites me to write to you, your wit These two fimilies of the Bias of a Bowl, and the Weights of a Clock, were at length put into the first book of the Dunciad. And thus we have the history of their birth, fortunes, and final establish ment. "W. |