will creep into your difcourfe, in fpite of you, even to your friends. But as women, when they think themselves fecure of admiration, commit a thousand negligences, which show them fo much at difadvantage and off their guard, as to lose the little real love they had before: fo when men imagine others entertain some esteem for their abilities, they often expofe all their imperfections and foolish works, to the disparagement of the little wit they were thought masters of. I am going to exemplify this to you, in putting into your hands (being encouraged by fo much indulgence) fome verses of my youth, or rather childhood; which (as I was a great admirer of Waller) were intended in imitation of his manner;* and are, perhaps, fuch imitations, as those you fee in aukward country dames, of the fine and wellbred ladies of the court. If you will take them with you into Lincolnshire, they may fave you one hour from the converfation of the country gentlemen and their tenants (who differ but in drefs and name) which, if it be there as bad as here, is even worse than my poetry. I hope your stay there will be no longer than (as Mr. Wycherley calls it) to rob the country, and run away to London with your money. In the mean time I beg the favour of a line from you, and am (as I will never cease to be) Your, &c.

* One or two of these were fince printed among other Imitatations done in his youth.

LETTER XIX.

O&. 12, 1710.

I

Deferred answering your laft, upon the advice I receiv'd, that you were leaving the town for fome time, and expected your return with impatience, having then a defign of feeing my friends there, among the firft of which I have reason to account yourself. But my almost continual illnesses prevent that, as well as moft other fatisfactions of my life: However, I may fay one good thing of fickness, that it is the beft cure in nature for ambition, and defigns upon the world or fortune: It makes a man pretty indifferent for the future, provided he can but be eafy, by intervals, for the prefent. He will be content to compound for his quiet only, and leave all the circumftantial part and pomp of life to those, who have a health vigorous enough to enjoy all the miftreffes of their defires. I thank God, there is nothing out of myself which I would be at the trouble of feeking, except a friend; a happiness I once hop'd to have poffefs'd in Mr. Wycherley; butQuantum mutatus ab illo !-I have for fome years been employ'd much like children that build houses with cards, endeavouring very bufily and eagerly to raise a friendship, which the firft breath of any illnatur'd by-stander could puff away. -But I will trouble you no farther with writing, nor myself with thinking, of this fubject.

4

I was mightily pleased to perceive by your quotation from Voiture, that you had track'd me so far as France. You fee 'tis with weak heads as with weak ftomachs, they immediately throw out what they received laft; and what they read, floats upon the furface of the mind, like oil upon water, without incorporating. This, I think, however, can't be faid of the love-verfes I last troubled you with, where all (I am afraid) is so puerile and fo like the author, that no body will fufpect any thing to be borrow'd. Yet you (as a friend, entertaining a better opinion of them) it feems, fearch'd in Waller, but fearch'd in vain. Your judgment of them is (I think) very right,-for it was my own opinion before. If you think 'em not worth the trouble of correcting, pray tell me fo freely, and it will fave me a labour; if you think the contrary, you would particularly oblige me by your remarks on the feveral thoughts as they occur. I long to be nibling at your verfes, and have not forgot who promis'd me Ovid's elegy Ad Amicam navigantem. Had Ovid been as long compofing it, as you in fending it, the lady might have fail'd to Gades, and receiv'd it at her return. I have really a great itch of criticism upon me, but want matter here in the country; which I defire you to furnish me with, as I do you in the town,

Sic fervat ftudii fædera quifque fui.

I am obliged to Mr. Caryl (whom you tell me, you met at Epsom) for telling you truth, as a man is in thefe days to any one that will tell truth to his advantage; and I think none is more to mine, than what he told you, and I should be glad to tell all the world, that I have an extreme affection and efteem for you.

Tecum etenim longos memini confumere foles,
Et tecum primas epulis decerpere noctes ;
Unum opus & requiem pariter difponimus ambo,
Atque verecunda laxamus feria menfa.

By thefe Epule, as I take it, Perfius meant the Portugal fnuff and burnt Claret, which he took with his master Cornutus; and the verecunda menfa was, without difpute, some coffee-house table of the ancients.-I will only observe, that these four lines are as elegant and mufical as any in Perfius, not excepting thofe fix or feven which Mr. Dryden quotes as the only fuch in all that author.-I could be heartily glad to repeat the fatisfaction defcrib'd in them, being truly

LETTER XX.

Your, &c.

October 28, 1710.

Am glad to find by your last letter that you write to me with the freedom of a friend, fetting down your thoughts as they occur, and dealing plainly

with me in the matter of my own trifles, which, I affure you, I never valued half fo much as I do that fincerity in you which they were the occafion of discovering to me; and which while I am happy in, I may be trufted with that dangerous weapon, Poetry, fince I shall do nothing with it but after afking and following your advice. I value fincerity the more, as I find by fad experience, the practice of it is more dangerous; writers rarely pardoning the executioners of their verfes, even tho' themselves pronounce sentence upon them. As to Mr. Philips's Pastorals, I take the first to be infinitely the best, and the fecond the worft; the third is for the greatest part a tranflation from Virgil's Daphnis. I will not foreftal your judgment of the reft, only obferve in that of the Nightingale thefe lines (fpeaking of the mufician's playing on the harp)

Now lightly fkimming o'er the firings they pass,
Like wings that gently brush the plying grafs,
And melting airs arife at their command;
And now, laborious, with a weighty band,
He finks into the cords, with folemn pace,
And gives the fuelling tones a manly grace.

To which nothing can be objected, but that they are too lofty for paftoral, especially being put into the mouth of a fhepherd, as they are here; in the poet's own perfon they had been (I believe) more proper. They are more after Virgil's manner than that of Theocritus, whom yet in the character of