LETTER III.

May 10, 1708.

YOU talk of fame and glory, and of the great

You

men of Antiquity: Pray, tell me, what are all your great dead men, but fo many little living

letters? What a vaft reward is here for all the ink wafted by Writers, and all the blood spilt by Princes? There was in old time one Severus a Roman Emperor. I dare fay you never called him by any other name in your life and yet in his days he was ftyled Lucius, Septimius, Severus, Pius, Pertinax, Auguftus, Parthicus, Adiabenicus, Arabicus, Maximus, and what not? What a prodigious waste of letters has time made! what a number have here dropt off, and left the poor furviving feven unattended! For my own part, four are all I have to care for; and I'll be judg'd by you if any man cou'd live in lefs compafs? Well, for the future I'll drown all high thoughts in the Lethe of cowflip-wine; as for Fame,. Renown, Reputation, take 'em, Critics!

Tradam protervis in Mare Criticum.

Ventis.

If ever I feek for Immortality here, may I be damn'd, for there is not fo much danger in a Poet's being damn'd:

Damnation follows death in other men,

But your damn'd Poet lives and writes agen.

LETTER IV.

Nov. 1, 1708.

I

Have been fo well fatisfy'd with the Country ever fince I faw you, that I have not once thought of the Town, or enquir'd of any one in it befides Mr. Wycherley and yourfelf. And from him I underftand of your journey this fummer into Leicefterfhire; from whence I guess you are return'd by this time, to your old apartment in the widow's corner, to your old bufinefs of comparing Critics, and reconciling Commentators, and to your old diverfions of lofing a game at piquet with the ladies, and half a play, or quarter of a play, at the theatre: where you are none of the malicious audience, but the chief of amorous fpectators; and for the infirmity of one * fenfe, which there, for the most part, could only ferve to disgust you, enjoy the vigour of another, which ravishes you.

It You know, when one fenfe is fupprefs'd,

It but retires into the rest.

according to the poetical, not the learned, Dodwell; who has done one thing worthy of eternal memory; wrote two lines in his life that are not nonfenfe!] So you have the advantage of being entertain'd with all the beauty of the boxes, without being troubled

with any of the dulnefs of the ftage. You are fo good a critic, that 'tis the greatest happiness of the modern Poets that you do not hear their works: and next, that you are not fo arrant a critic, as to damn them (like the reft) without hearing. But now I talk of those critics, I have good news to tell you concerning myfelf, for which I expect you fhould congratulate with me: It is that, beyond all my expectations, and far above my demerits, I have. been moft mercifully repriev'd by the fovereign power of Jacob Tonfon, from being brought forth to public punishment; and refpited from time to time from the hands of those barbarous executioners of the Mufes, whom I was just now fpeaking of. It often happens, that guilty Poets, like other guilty Criminals, when once they are known and proclaim'd, deliver themselves into the hands of justice, only to prevent others from doing it more to their disadvantage; and not out of any ambition to spread their fame, by being executed in the face of the world, which is a fame but of fhort continuance. That Poet were a happy man who could but obtain a grant to preserve his for ninety-nine years; for thofe names very rarely laft fo many days, which are planted either in Jacob Tonfon's, or the Ordinary of Newgate's Mifcellanies.

I have an hundred things to fay to you, which fhall be deferr'd till I have the happiness of seeing you in town, for the season now draws on, that in

vites every body thither. Some of them I had communicated to you by letters before this, if I had not been uncertain where you pass'd your time the last feafon So much fine weather, 1 doubt not, has given you all the pleasure you could defire from the country, and your own thoughts the best company in it. But nothing could allure Mr. Wycherley to our foreft, he continued (as you told me long fince he would) an obftinate lover of the town, in fpite of friendship and fair weather. Therefore henceforward, to all those confiderable qualities I know you poffefs'd of, I fhall add that of Prophecy. But I still believe Mr. Wycherley's intentions were good, and am fatisfy'd that he promises nothing, but with a real defign to perform it: how much foever his other excellent qualities are above my imitation, his fincerity, I hope, is not; and it is with the utmost that I am,

Sir, &e,

LETTER V.

Jan 22, 1708-9.

I

Had fent you the inclos'd* papers before this time, but that I intended to have brought them myfelf, and afterwards could find no opportunity of

This was a tranflation of the first book of Statius, done when the author was but fourteen years old, as appears by an advertisement before the first edition of it in a mifcellany publish's by B. Lintot, 8vo. 1714.

fending them without suspicion of their miscarrying ; not that they are of the leaft value, but for fear fome body might be foolish enough to imagine them fo, and inquifitive enough to difcover those faults which I (by your help) would correct. I therefore beg the favour of you to let them go no farther than your chamber, and to be very free of your remarks in the margins, not only in regard to the accuracy, but to the fidelity of the tranflation; which I havé not had time to compare with its original. And I defire you to be more fevere, as it is much more criminal for me to make another speak nonfenfe, than to do it in my own proper person. For your better help in comparing, it may be fit to tell you, that this is not an entire verfion of the first book. There is an omiffion from the 168th line-Jam murmura ferpunt Plebis Agenorea-to the 312th-Interea patriis olim vagus exul ab oris-(between these

two Statius has a defcription of the council of the Gods, and a fpeech of Jupiter; which contain a peculiar beauty and majesty, and were left out for no other reason, but because the confequence of this machine appears not till the second book.) The tranflation goes on from thence to the words Hic vero ambobus rabiem fortuna cruentam, where there is an odd account of a battle at fifty cuffs between two Princes on a very flight occafion, and at a time when,

* These he fince tranflated, and they are extant in the printed verfion.