in which I read your letter. I would seriously have you think, you have no man who more truly knows to place a right value on your friendship, than he who least deserves it on all other accounts than his due sense of it. But, let me tell you, you can hardly guess what a task you undertake, when you profess yourself my friend; there are some Tories who will take you for a Whig, some Whigs who will take you for a Tory, some Protestants who will esteem you a rank Papist, and some Papists who will account you a heretic.

I find, by dear experience, we live in an age, where it is criminal to be moderate; and where no one man can be allowed to be just to all men. The notions of right and wrong are so far strained, that perhaps to be in the right so very violently may be of worse consequence than to be easily and quietly in the wrong. I really wish all men so well, that, I am satisfied, but few can wish me so; but if those few are such as tell me they do, I am content, for they are the best people I know. While you believe me what I profess as to religion, I can bear any thing the bigoted may say; while Mr. Congreve likes my poetry, I can endure Dennis, and a thousand more like him; while the most honest and moral of each party think me no ill man, I can easily bear that the most violent and mad of all parties rise up to throw dirt at me.

I must expect an hundred attacks upon the publication of my Homer. Whoever in our times would be a professor of learning above his fellows,

ought at the very first to enter the world with the constancy and resolution of a primitive christian, and be prepared to suffer all sort of public persecution. It is certainly to be lamented, that if any man does but endeavour to distinguish himself, or gratify others by his studies, he is immediately treated as a common enemy, instead of being looked upon as a common friend; and assaulted as generally as if his whole design were to prejudice the state or ruin the public. I will venture to say, no man ever rose to any degree of perfection in writing, but through obstinacy and an inveterate resolution against the stream of mankind: so that if the world has received any benefit from the labours of the learned, it was in its own despite. For when first they essay their parts, all people in general are prejudiced against new beginners; and when they have got a little above contempt, then some particular persons, who were before unfortunate in their own attempts, are sworn foes to them only because they succeed-Upon the whole, one may say of the best writers, that they pay a severe fine for their fame, which it is always in the power of the most worthless part of mankind to levy upon when they please.

them

I am, &c.

LETTER II.

TO MR. JERVAS.

July 28, 1714.

I AM just entered upon the old way of life again, sleep and musing. It is my employment to revive the old of past ages to the present, as it is yours to transmit the young of the present, to the future. I am copying the great master in one art, with the same love and diligence with which the painters hereafter will copy you in another.

Thus I should begin my epistle to you, if it were a dedicatory one. But as it is a friendly letter, you are to find nothing mentioned in your own praise but what one only in the world is witness to, your particular good-natured offices to me.

I am cut out from any thing but common acknowledgments, or common discourse: the first you would take ill, though I told but half what I ought so, in short, the last only remains.

And as for the last, what can you expect from a man who has not talked these five days? Who is withdrawing his thoughts, as far as he can, from all the present world, its customs, and its manners, to be fully possessed and absorbed in the past? When people talk of going to church, I think of sacrifices and libations; when I see the parson, I address him as Chryses, priest of Apollo; and instead of the Lord's Prayer, I begin,

God of the silver bow, &c.

While you in the world are concerned about the Protestant succession, I consider only how Menelaus may recover Helen, and the Trojan war be put to a speedy conclusion. I never inquire if the queen be well or not, but heartily wish to be at Hector's funeral. The only things I regard in this life, are whether my friends are well? whether my translation go well on? whether Dennis be writing criticisms? whether any body will answer him, since I do not? and whether Lintot be not yet broke? I am, &c.

LETTER III.

TO MR. JERVAS.

August 16, 1714.

I THANK you for your good offices, which are numberless. Homer advances so fast, that he begins to look about for the ornaments he is to appear in like a modest modern author:

Picture in the front,

With bays and wicked rhyme upon't.

I have the greatest proof in nature at present of the amusing power of poetry, for it takes me up so entirely, that I scarce see what passes under my nose, and hear nothing that is said about me. To follow poetry as one ought, one must forget father and mother, and cleave to it alone. My reverie has been so deep, that I have scarce had

an interval to think myself uneasy in the want of your company. I now and then just miss you as I step into bed; this minute indeed I want extremely to see you; the next, I shall dream of nothing but the taking of Troy, or the recovery of Briseis.

I fancy no friendship is so likely to prove lasting as ours, because, I am pretty sure, there never was a friendship of so easy a nature. We neither of us demand any mighty things from each other; what vanity we have expects its gratification from other people. It is not I, that am to tell you what an artist you are, nor is it you that are to tell me what a poet I am; but it is from the world abroad we hope (piously hope) to hear these things. At home we follow our business, when we have any; and think and talk most of each other when we have none. It is not unlike the happy friendship of a staid man and his wife, who are seldom so fond as to hinder the business of the house from going on all day, or so indolent as not to find consolation in each other every evening. Thus well-meaning couples hold in amity to the last, by not expecting too much from human nature; while romantic friendships, like violent loves, begin with disquiets, proceed to jealousies, and conclude in animosities. I have lived to see the fierce advancement, the sudden turn, and the abrupt period, of three or four of these enormous friendships, and am perfectly convinced of the truth of a maxim we once agreed in, that nothing