fords me a great deal of pleasure, which is much better than a great deal of pride; and it indeed would give me some pain, if I was not sure of one advantage; that whereas others are offended if they have not more than justice done them, you would be displeased if you had so much; therefore I may safely do you as much injury in my word, as you do yourself in your own thoughts. I am so vain as to think I have shewn you a favour in sparing your modesty, and you cannot but make me some return for prejudicing the truth to gratify you. This I beg may be the free correction of these verses, which will have few beauties but what may be made by your blots. I am in the circumstance of an ordinary painter drawing Sir Godfrey Kneller, who by a few touches of his own, could make the piece very valuable. I might then hope, that many years hence the world might read, in conjunction with your name, that of Your lordship's, &c.

LETTER II.

FROM LORD LANSDOWN.

Oct. 21, 1713.

I

AM pleased beyond measure with your design of translating Homer. The trials which you have already made and published on some parts of that author, have shewn that you are equal to so great

a task and you may therefore depend upon the utmost services I can do you in promoting this work, or any thing that may be for your service.

I hope Mr. Stafford, for whom you was pleased to concern yourself, has had the good effects of the Queen's grace to him. I had notice the night before I began my journey, that her majesty had not only directed his pardon, but ordered a writ for reversing his outlawry. Your, &c.

LETTER III.

**

TO GENERAL ANTHONY HAMILTON,*

Upon his having translated into French Verse the ESSAY ON CRITICISM.

October 10, 1713.

IF I could as well express, or (if you will allow me to say it) translate the sentiments of my heart as you have done those of my head, in your excel

* Author of the Memoirs of the Count de Grammont, Contas, and other pieces of note in French. Pope.

They have been lately printed most beautifully at Strawberry Hill, in quarto, with cuts of each remarkable person mentioned in them, under the auspices, and by the direction of a nobleman, whose taste and literature are equalled only by the elegance of his manners and the goodness of his heart. The Memoirs of Grammont, if no other proofs were extant, would be indisputable and irrefragable testimonies of the extreme profligacy and dissoluteness of manners in the court of Charles the Second; manners learnt and imitated from the court of Louis the Fourteenth; whence also he adopted and brought hither those principles of arbitrary power that England would not bear, and of which we have lived to see

lent version of my Essay; I should not only appear the best writer in the world, but, what I much more desire to be thought, the most your servant of any man living. It is an advantage very rarely known, to receive at once, a great honour and a great improvement. This, Sir, you have afforded me, having, at the same time, made others take my sense, and taught me to understand my own; if I may call that my own which is indeed more properly yours. Your verses are no more a translation of mine, than Virgil's are of Homer's; but are, like his, the justest imitation and the noblest Commentary.

In putting me into a French dress, you have not only adorned my outside, but mended my shape; and if I am now a good figure, I must consider you have naturalized me into a country which is famous for making every man a fine gentleman. It is by your means, that (contrary to most young travellers) I am come back much better than I went out.

I cannot but wish we had a bill of commerce for translation established the next parliament; we could not fail of being gainers by that, nor of making ourselves amends for any thing we have lost by the war. Nay, though we should insist upon the demolishing of Boileau's works, the French, as long as they have writers of your form, might have as good an equivalent.

the very lamentable effects in France itself. For it must, after all, be confessed, that, in that unhappy country, it was DESPOTISM which has ultimately produced ANARCHY, and POPERY which has produced ATHEISM.

Warton.

Upon the whole, I am really as proud, as our ministers ought to be, of the terms I have gained from abroad; and I design, like them, to publish speedily to the world the benefits accruing from them; for I cannot resist the temptation of printing your admirable translation here;* to which if you will be so obliging to give me leave to prefix your name, it will be the only addition you can make to the honour already done me. I am your, &c.

MY LORD,

LETTER IV.†

TO THE EARL OF HALIFAX.

December 1, 1714.

I AM obliged to you both for the favors you have done me, and for those you intend me. I

* This was never done, for the two printed French versions are neither of this hand. The one was done by Monsieur Roboton, private secretary to King George the First, printed in quarto at Amsterdam, and at London 1717. The other by the Abbé Resnel, in octavo, with a large preface and notes, at Paris, 1730.

Pope.

+ Great misrepresentation seems to have taken place respecting the acquaintance between Pope and this nobleman, as has been already noticed in the Life of Pope, chap. iii. and in the Prologue to the Satires, ver. 232, note. From what is there stated, it will sufficiently appear that the character of Bufo, which was written in the latter period of the life of Pope, could not have been intended for Lord Halifax, who died in 1715, when Pope was a young man. It may here also be further observed, that the anecdote related by Spence as to Lord Halifax's criticizing Pope's Iliad, and approving of the passages objected to when afterwards shewn to him by Pope as altered, is wholly inconsistent with, if

distrust neither your will nor your memory, when it is to do good: and if ever I become troublesome or solicitous, it must not be out of expectation, but out of gratitude. Your Lordship may either cause me to live agreeably in the town, or contentedly in the country, which is really all the difference I set between an easy fortune and a small one. It is indeed a high strain of generosity in you, to think of making me easy all my life, only because I have been so happy as to divert you some few hours: but if I may have leave to add, it is because you think me no enemy to my native country, there will appear a better reason; for I must of consequence be very much (as I sincerely am), Yours, &c.*

LETTER V.

TO THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM.†

[In answer to a Letter in which he inclosed the Description of Buckingham-House, written by him to the D. of Sh.]

As this letter of the Duke may afford some assistance in explaining that of Pope, which is sufficiently obscure, and as it contains a very curious and particular account of Buckingham House

not in direct contradiction to the fact, that the two first books of the Iliad were not only shewn to, but left in the hands of Lord Halifax for his perusal, as appears by the Letter from Pope to Addison, of the 10th Oct. 1714, v. ante, p. 208.

* Lord Halifax died in the month of May following.

↑ John Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham, was one of the most extraordinary persons of his time. He traced his descent from