in your conversation all that I can defire of it; nay, can learn more from you alone, than from my long experience of the great, or little vulgar in it.

As to the fuccefs of your poems in the late mifcellany, which I told you of in my last; upon my word I made you no compliment, for you may be affur'd that all fort of readers like them, except they are writers too; but for them (I must needs fay the more they like them, they ought to be the lefs pleas'd with 'em: fo that you do not come off with a bare faving game (as you call it) but have gain'd fo much credit at first, that you must needs fupport it to the laft: fince you fet up with fo great a ftock of good fenfe, judgment, and wit, that your judgment enfures all that your wit ventures at. The falt of your wit has been enough to give a relish to the whole infipid hotch-potch it is mingled with; and you will make Jacob's Ladder raise you to immortality, by which others are turn'd off shamefully to their damnation (for poetic thieves as they are) who think to be fav'd by others good works, how faulty foever their own are: but the coffee-houfe wits, or rather anti-wits the critics, prove their judgments by approving your wit; and even the news-mongers and poets will own, you have more invention than they; nay, the detractors or the envious, who never fpeak well of any body (not even of those they think well of in their abfence) yet will give you even in your abfence their good word; and the cri

tics only hate you, for being forced to speak well of you whether they will or no: All this is true upon the word of

Your, &c.

M

LETTER XXI.

From Mr. WYCHERLEY.

Aug. 11, 1709.

Y letters, fo much inferior to yours, can only make up their scarcity of sense by their number of lines; which is like the Spaniards paying a debt of gold with a load of brass money. But to be a plain-dealer, I muft tell you, I will revenge the raillery of your letters by printing them (as Dennis did mine) without your knowledge too, which wou'd be a revenge upon your judgment for the raillery of your wit; for fome dull rogues (that is the most in the world) might be fuch fools as to think what you have faid of me was in earneft: It is not the first time, your great wits have gain'd reputation by their paradoxical or ironical praifes; your forefathers have done it, Erafmus and others. For all mankind who know me muft confefs, he must be no ordinary genius, or little friend, who can find out any thing to commend in me ferioufly; who have given no fign of my judgment but my opinion of yours, nor Kalk of my wit, but by leaving off writing to the

public now you are beginning to fhew the world what you can do by yours: whofe wit is as fpiritual as your judgment infallible: in whose judgment I have an implicit faith, and shall always fubfcribe to it to fave my works, in this world, from the flames and damnation.-Pray, prefent my moft humble fervice to Sir William Trumbull; for whom and whose judgment I have so profound a refpect, that his example had almoft made me marry, more than my Nephew's ill carriage to me; having once refolv'd to have revenged myfelf upon him by my marriage, but now am refolv'd to make my revenge greater upon him by His marriage.

I

LETTER XXII.

From Mr. WY CHERLEY.

Have had

April 1, 1710.

yours of the 30th of the last month,

which is kinder than I defire it should be, fince it tells me you cou'd be better pleas'd to be fick again in Town in my company, than to be well in the Country without it; and that you are more impatient to be depriv'd of happiness than of health. Yet, my dear friend, fet raillery or compliment afide, I can bear your abfence (which procures your health and ease) better than I can your company when you are in pain: for I cannot fee you fe without being fo

too. Your love to the Country I do not doubt, nor do you (I hope) my love to it or you, fince there I · can enjoy your company without feeing you in pain to give me fatisfaction and pleasure; there I can have you without rivals or difturkers; without the too civil, or the too rude: without the noife of the loud, or the censure of the silent: and wou'd rather have you abufe me there with the truth, than at this diftance with your compliment: fince now, your bufinefs of a friend, and kindness to a friend, is by finding fault with his faults, and mending them by your obliging feverity. I hope (in point of your goodnature) you will have no cruel charity for those papers of mine, you are fo willing to be troubled with; which I take most infinitely kind of you, and fhall acknowledge with gratitude, as long as I live. No friend can do more for his friend than preferving his reputation (nay, not by preferving his life) fince by preferving his life he can only make him live about threefcore or fourfcore years; but by preferving his reputation, he can make him live as long as the world lasts; so save him from damning, when he is gone to the devil. Therefore, I pray, condemn me in private, as the Thieves do their ac complices in Newgate, to fave them from condemnation by the public. Ee moft kindly unmerciful to my poetical faults, and do with my papers, as you country gentlemen do with your trees, flash, cut, and lop off the excrefcencies and dead parts of my wither'd bays, that the little remainder may live the

:

longer, and increase the value of them by diminishing the number. I have troubled you with my papers rather to give you pain than pleasure, notwithftanding your compliment, which fays you take the trouble kindly fuch is your generosity to your friends, that you take it kindly to be defired by them to do them a kindness; and you think it done to you, when they give you an opportunity to do it them. Wherefore you may be fure to be troubled with my letters out of your intereft, if not kindness; fince mine to you will procure yours to me: so that I write to you more for my own fake than yours; lefs to make you think I write well, than to learn from you to write better. Thus you fee interest in my kindness, which is like the friendship of the world, rather to make a friend than be a friend; but I am yours, as a true Plain-dealer.

LETTER XXIII.

From Mr. WY CHERLEY.

April 11, 1710.

F I can do part of my bufinefs at Shrewsbury in a fortnight's time (which I propofe to do) I will be foon after with you, and trouble you with my company, for the remainder of the fummer: in the mean time I beg you to give yourself the pains of altering, or leaving out what you think fuperfluous in my papers, that I may endeavour to print fuch a

•D 4'