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in like manner as I have born others, with fome degree of fortitude and firmness.

You fee how ready I am to relapfe into an argu ment which I had quitted once before in this letter. I fhall probably again commit the fame fault, if I continue to write; and therefore I ftop fhort here, and with all fincerity, affection, and esteem, bid you adieu! till we meet either in this world, if God pleases, or else in another.

I am, &c.

i

LETTERS

LETTERS

TO AND FROM

Mr.

GAY.

From 1712 to 1732.

You

LETTER I

Binfield, Nov. 13, 1712,

YOU writ me a very kind Letter fome months ago, and told me you were then upon the point of taking a journey into Devonshire. That hindered my answering you, and I have since several times inquired of you, without any fatisfaction; for fo I call the knowledge of your welfare, or of any thing that concerns you. I paft two months in Suffex, and fince my return have been again very ill. I writ to Lintot in hopes of hearing of you, but had no answer to that point. Our friend Mr. Cromwell too has been filent all this

I believe he has been difpleased at fome or other of my freedoms, which I very innocently

We fee by the letters to Mr. Cromwell, that Mr. Pope was used to railly him on his turn for trifling and pedantic criticifm. So he loft his two early friends, Cromwell and Wycherly, by his zeal to correct the bad poetry of the one, and the bad taste of the other.

take,

take, and moft with thofe I think most my friends. But this I know nothing of; perhaps he may have opened to you and if I know you right, you are of a temper to cement friendships, and not to divide them. I really much love Mr. Cromwell, and have a true affection for yourself, which, if I had any intereft in the world, or power with those who have, I fhould not be long without manifefting to you. I defire you will not, either out of modefty, or a vicious diftruft of another's value for you (thofe two eternal foes to merit) imagine that your letters and converfation are not always welcome to There is no man more intirely fond of goodnature or ingenuity than myself, and I have seen too much of those qualities in you to be any thing lefs than

me.

LETTER II.

Your, &c.

Dec. 24, 1721.

I

T has been my good fortune within this month

paft, to hear more things that have pleas'd me than (I think) almost in all my time befide. But nothing upon my word has been fo home-felt a fatisfaction as the news you tell me of yourself and you are not in the least mistaken, when you congratulate me upon your own good fuccefs: for I have more people out of whom to be happy, than any ill-natur'd man can boaft of. I may with honefty affirm to you, that, notwithstanding the many inconveniences and difadvantages they commonly talk of in the Res angufta domi, I have never found any other, than the inability of giving people of merit the only certain proof of our value for them, in doing them fome real service. For after all, if

we could but think a little, felf-love might make us philofophers, and convince us quantuli indiget Natura! Ourfelves are eafily provided for; 'tis nothing but the circumftantials, and the Apparatus or equipage of human life, that costs so much the furnifhing. Only what a luxurious man wants for horfes, and footmen, a good-natur'd man wants for his friends, or the indigent.

I fhall fee you this winter with much greater pleafure than I could the laft; and, I hope, as much of your time, as your attendance on the Duchess * will allow you to fpare to any friend, will not be thought loft upon one who is as much fo as any man. I must also put you in mind, tho' you are now fecretary to this Lady, that you are likewise fecretary to nine other Ladies, and are to write fometimes for them too. He who is forced to live wholly upon thofe Ladies favours is indeed in as a precarious a condition as any He who does what Chaucer fays for fuftenance; but they are very agreeable companions, like other Ladies, when a man only paffes a night or fo with them at his leifure, and away. I am

Your, &c.

JUST

LETTER III.

Aug. 23, 1713.

UST as I receiv'd yours, I was fet down to write to you, with fome fhame that I had fo long deferred it. But I can hardly repent my neglect, when it gives me the knowledge how little you infift upon ceremony, and how much a greater Thare in your memory I have, than I deferve. I

* Duchefs of Monmouth, to whom he was just then made Secretary.

have been near a week in London, where I am like to remain, till I become, by Mr. Jervas's help, Elegans Formarum Spectator. I begin to discover beauties that were till now imperceptible to me. Every corner of an eye, or turn of a nofe or ear, the smallest degree of light or fhade on a cheek, or in a dimple, have charms to diftract me. I no longer look upon Lord Plaufible as ridiculous, for admiring a Lady's fine tip of an ear and pretty elbow (as the Plain-Dealer has it) but am in fome danger even from the ugly and disagreeable, fince they may have their retired beauties, in one trait or other about them. You may guefs in how uneafy a ftate I am, when every day the performances of others appear more beautiful and excellent, and my own more despicable. I have thrown away three Dr. Swifts, each of which was once my vanity, two Lady Bridgwaters, a Dutchefs of Montague, befides half a dozen Earls, and one knight of the garter. I have crucified Chrift over again in effigie, and made a Madona as old as her mother St. Anne. Nay, what is yet more miraculous, I have rivall'd St. Luke himself in painting, and as, 'tis faid, an angel came and finished his piece, fo, you would fwear, a devil put the laft hand to mine, 'tis fo begrim'd and fmutted. However I comfort myself with a Chriftian reflection, that I have not broken the commandment, for my pictures are not the likeness of any thing in heaven above, or in earth below, or in the water under the earth. Neither will any body adore or worthip them, except the Indians fhould have a fight of them, who, they tell us, worship certain idols purely for their uglinefs.

I am very much recreated and refreshed with the news of the advancement of the Fan, which,

A Poem of Mr. Gay's, fo intitled,

I doubt

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