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LETTER XXVIII.

From Mr. CROMWELL.

Oct. 26, 1711.

MR

R. Wycherley vifited me at Bath in my ficknefs, and exprefs'd much affection to me: hearing from me how welcome his letters would be, he presently writ to you; in which I inferted my fcrall, and after, a fecond. He went to Gloucester in his way to Salop, but was disappointed of a boat, and fo return'd to the Bath; then he fhewed me your anfwer to his letters, in which you speak of my goodnature, but, I fear, you found me very froward at Reading; yet you allow for my illness. I could not poffibly be in the fame house with Mr. Wycherley, tho' I fought it earnestly; nor come up to town with him, he being engaged with others; but, whenever we met, he talk'd of you. He praises your Poem, and even outvies me in kind expreffions of you. As if he had not wrote two letters to you, he was for writing every poft; I put him in mind he had already. Forgive me this wrong; I know not whether my talking fo much of your great humanity and tenderness to me, and love to him; or whether the return of his natural disposition to you, was the caufe; but certainly you are now highly in his favour: now he will come this winter to your house, Effay on Criticism,

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and I must go with him; but first he will invite you fpeedily to town.-I arrived on Saturday laft much wearied, yet had wrote fooner, but was told by Mr. Gay (who has writ a pretty poem to Lintot, and who gives you his service) that you was gone from home. Lewis fhew'd me your Letter, which set me right, and your next letter is impatiently expected from me. Mr. Wycherley came to town on Sunday laft, and kindly furprized me with a vifit on Monday morning. We dined and drank together; and I faying, To our Loves, he reply'd, 'Tis Mr. Pope's health: He faid he would go Mr. Thorold's and leave a letter for you. Tho' I cannot answer for the event of all this, in refpect to him; yet I can affure you, that, when you please to come, you will be moft defirable to me, as always by inclination, fo now by duty, who fhall ever be

LETTER XXIX.

Your, &c.

Nov. 12, 1711.

I

Received the entertainment of your letter the day after I had fent you one of mine, and I am but this morning returned hither. The news you tell me of the many difficulties you found in your return from Bath, gives me fuch a kind pleasure as we ufually take in accompanying our friends in their mix'd adventures; for, methinks, I fee you labour

ing thro' all your inconveniencies of the rough roads, the hard faddle, the trotting horse, and what not? What an agreeable furprize would it have been to me, to have met you by pure accident (which I was within an ace of doing) and to have carried you off triumphantly, fet you on an eafier pad, and relieved the wandring knight with a night's lodging and rural repast, at our castle on the foreft? But these are only the pleafing imginations of a difappointed lover, who muft fuffer in a melancholy abfence yet these two months. In the mean time, I take up with the Mufes for want of your better company; the Muses, quæ nobifcum pernoctant, peregrinantur, rufticantur. Thofe aërial ladies juft difcover enough to me of their beauties to urge my purfuit, and draw me on in a wandering maze of thought, ftill in hopes (and only in hopes) of attaining those favours from them, which they confer on their more happy admirers. We grasp some more beautiful idea in our own brain, than our endeavours to express it can fet to the view of others; and ftill do but labour to fall fhort of our first imagination. The gay colouring which fancy gave at the first tran. fient glance we had of it, goes off in the execution: like thofe various figures in the gilded clouds, which while we gaze long upon, to feparate the parts of each imaginary image, the whole faints before the eye, and decays into confufion.

I am highly pleased with the knowledge you give me of Mr. Wycherley's prefent temper, which feems

fo favourable to me. I fhall ever have fuch a fund of affection for him as to be agreeable to myself when I am fo to him, and cannot but be gay when he is in good humour, as the furface of the earth (if you will pardon a poetical fimilitude) is clearer or gloomier, juft as the fun is brighter or more overcaft-I fhould be glad to fee the verses to Lintot which you mention, for, methinks, fomething oddly agreeable may be produced from that fubject-For what remains, I am fo well, that nothing but the affurance of your being fo, can make me better; and if you would have me live with any fatisfaction thefe dark days in which I cannot see you, it must be by your writing fometimes to

Your, &c.

LETTER XXX.

From Mr. CROMWELL.

Dec. 7, 171.

R. Wycherley has, I believe, fent you two or three letters of invitation; but you, like the fair, will be long folicited before you yield, to make the favour the more acceptable to the lover. He is much yours by his talk; for that unbounded genius which has rang'd at large like a libertine, now feems confin'd to you and I fhould take him for your miArefs too by your fimile of the fun and earth: 'Tis

very fine, but inverted by the application; for the gaiety of your fancy, and the drooping of his by the withdrawing of your luftre, perfuades me it would be juster by the reverse. Oh happy favourite of the Muses! how per noctare, all night long with them? but alas! you do but toy, but skirmish with them, and decline a close engagment. Leave Elegy and translation to the inferior clafs, on whom the Muses only glance now and then like our winterfun, and then leave them in the dark. Think on the dignity of Tragedy, which is of the greater poetry, as Dennis fays, and foil him at his other weapon, as you have done in Criticism. Every one wonders that a genius like yours will not fupport the finking Drama: and Mr. Wilks (tho', I think, his talent is Comedy) has exprefs'd a furious ambition to fwell in your buskins. We have had a poor Comedy of Johnson's (not Ben) which held seven nights, and has got him three hundred pounds, for the town is sharp-set on new plays. In vain would I fire you by intereft or ambition, when your mind is not fufceptible of either; tho' your authority (arifing from the general esteem, like that of Pompey) must infallibly affure you of fuccefs; for which in all your wishes you will be attended with those of

Your, &c.

VOL. VIII.

K

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