LETTER IV.

I

FROM SIR WILLIAM TRUMBULL.

March 6, 1713.

THINK a hasty scribble shows more what flows from the heart, than a letter after Balzac's manner in studied phrases; therefore I will tell you as fast as I can, that I have received your favour of the 26th past, with your kind present of the Rape of the Lock. You have given me the truest satisfaction imaginable, not only in making good the just opinion I have ever had of your reach of thought, and my idea of your comprehensive genius, but likewise in that pleasure I take as an Englishman to see the French, even Boileau himself in his Lutrin, out-done in your poem; for you descend, leviore plectro, to all the nicer touches, that your own observation and wit furnish, on such a subject as requires the finest strokes and the liveliest imagination. But I must say no more (though I could a great deal) on what pleases me so much; and henceforth, I hope you will never condemn me of partiality, since I only swim with the stream, and approve of what all men of good taste (notwithstanding the jarring of parties) must and do universally applaud. I now come to what is of vast moment, I mean the preservation of your health, and beg of you earnestly to get out of all tavern company, and fly away tanquam

ex incendio. What a misery is it for you to be destroyed by the foolish kindness (it is all one whether real or pretended) of those who are able to bear the poison of bad wine, and to engage you in so unequal a combat? As to Homer, by all I can learn, your business is done: therefore come away and take a little time to breathe in the country. I beg now for my own sake, and much more for yours; methinks Mr. has said to you more

than once,

Heu fuge, nate deâ, teque his, ait, eripe flammis!*

I am your, &c.

LETTER V.

TO SIR WILLIAM TRUMBULL.

March 12, 1713.

THOUGH any thing you write is sure to be a pleasure to me, yet I must own your last letter made me uneasy: you really use a style of compliment, which I expect as little as I deserve it. I know it is a common opinion that a young scribbler is as ill pleased to hear truth as a young lady. From the moment one sets up for an author, one

* This friendly warning was not given without occasion, as appears from Pope's own account of himself:

"The gayest valetudinaire,

Most thinking rake alive."

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 just judgment upon poets, that they whose 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 say this, as if the obliging letter you sent me deserved this imputation, only it put me in mind of it; and I fancy one may apply to one's friend what Cæsar said of his wife: "It was not sufficient that he knew her to be chaste himself, but she should not be so much as suspected."

As to the wonderful discoveries, and all the good news you are pleased to tell me of myself, I treat it, as you who are in the secret, treat common news, as groundless reports of things at a distance; which I, who look into the true springs 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 scarce so strong a temptation as to warrant our loss of time here: it can never make us lie down contentedly on a death-bed (as some of the ancients are said to have done with that thought). You, Sir, have yourself taught me, that an easy

situation 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 sincere intentions of the heart only. As in the next world, so in this, the only solid blessings are owing to the goodness of the mind, not the extent of the capacity friendship here is an emanation from the same source as beatitude is there: the same benevolence and grateful disposition that qualifies us for the one, if extended farther, makes us partakers of the other. The utmost point of my desires in my present state terminates in the society and good-will of worthy men, which I look upon as no ill earnest and foretaste of the society and alliance of happy souls hereafter.

The continuance of your favours to me is what not only makes me happy, but causes me to set some 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 I am your, &c.

you.

LETTER VI.

TO SIR WILLIAM TRUMBULL.

April 30, 1713.

I HAVE been almost every day employed in following your advice, and amusing myself in

painting; in which I am most 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 usual. Cato was not so much the wonder of Rome in his days, as he is of Britain in ours; and though all the foolish industry possible has been used to make it thought a party-play, yet what the author once said of another may the most properly in the world be applied to him, on this occasion:

Envy itself is dumb, in wonder lost,

And factions strive, who shall applaud him most.

The numerous and violent claps of the Whigparty on the one side of the theatre, were echoed back by the Tories on the other; while the author sweated behind the scenes with concern to find their applause proceeding more from the hand than the head. This was the case 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 opposite faction, my Lord Bolingbroke sent for Booth, who played Cato, into the Box, between one of the acts, and presented him with fifty guineas; in acknowledgment (as he expressed it) for defending the cause

* The Prologue was written by Pope, and is considered as a perfect model of that style of composition.