I prefume you will allow me to take the fame liberty, in my answer to fo candid, polite, and ingenious a Nobleman, which your Lordship took in yours, to so grave, religious, and refpectable a Clergyman * : As anfwered his Latin in English, permit me to you anfwer your Verfe in Profe. And tho' your Lordfhip's reafons for not writing in Latin, might be ftronger than mine for not writing in Verfe, yet I may plead Two good ones, for this conduct: the one that I want the Talent of fpinning a thousand lines in a Day + (which, I think, is as much Time as this fubject deferves) and the other, that I take your Lordship's Verfe to be as much Profe as this letter. But no doubt it was your choice, in writing to a friend, to renounce all the pomp of Poetry, and to give us this excellent model of the familiar.

When I confider the great difference betwixt the rank your Lordship holds in the World, and the rank which your writings are like to hold in the learned world, I prefume that distinction of ftyle is but neceffary, which you will fee obferv'd thro' this letter. When I speak of you, my Lord, it will be with all the deference due to the inequality which Fortune has made between you and myfelf:"but when I fpeak of your writings, my Lord, I muft, I can do nothing but trifle.

I fhould be obliged indeed to leffen this Refpect, if all the Nobility (and efpecially the elder brothers) are but fo many hereditary foolst, if the privilege of Lords be to want brains ||, if noblemen can hard

* Dr. S.

+ And Pope with juftice of fuch lines may fay,

His Lordship Spins a thufand in a day. Epift. p. 6.
That to good blood by old preferiptive rules

Gives right hereditary to be Fools.

Nor wonder that my Brain no more affords,
But recollect the privilege of Lords.

ly write or read *, if all their business is but to dress and vote t, and all their employment in court, to tell lies, flatter in public, flander in private, be falfe to each other, and follow nothing but felf-intereft 1. Blefs me, my Lord, what an account is this you give of them? and what would have been said of me, had I'immolated, in this manner, the whole body of the Nobility, at the stall of a well-fed Prebendary ?

Were it the mere Excess of your Lordship's Wit, that carried you thus triumphantly over all the bounds of decency, I might confider your Lordship on your Pegafus, as a fprightly hunter on a mettled horfe; and while you were trampling down all our works, patiently fuffer the injury, in pure admiration of the Noble Sport. But fhould the cafe be quite otherwife, fhould your Lordship be only like a Boy that is run away with; and run away with by a Very Foal; really common charity, as well as refpect for a noble family, would oblige me to ftop your carreer, and to help you down from this Pegafus.

Surely the little praise of a Writer should be a thing below your ambition: You, who were no fooner born, but in the lap of the Graces; no fooner at school, but in the arms of the Muses; no fooner in the World, but you practis'd all the skill of it; no fooner in the Court, but you poffefs'd all the art of it! Unrivall'd as you are, in making a figure,

And when you fee me fairly write my name ;
For England's fake wifh all could do the fame.
+ Whilst all our business is to dress and vote. ibid.
Courts are only larger families,

The growth of each, few truths, and many lies:
in private fatyrize, in public flatter.

Few to each other, all to one point true;
Which one I fha'n't, nor need explain. Adieu. p.

and

and in making a fpeech, methinks, my Lord, you may well give up the poor talent of turning a Diftich. And why this fondness for Poetry? Profe admits of the two excellencies you moft admire, Diction and Fiction: It admits of the talents you chiefly poffefs, a moft fertile invention, and most florid expreffion; it is with profe, nay the plaineft profe, that you beft could teach our nobility to vote, which, you juftly obferve, is half at least of their bufinefs: And, give me leave to prophefy, it is to your talent in profe, and not in verfe, to your speaking, not your writing, to your art at court, not your art of poetry, that your Lordship muft owe your future figure in the world.

My Lord, whatever you imagine, this is the advice of a Friend, and one who remembers he formerly had the honour of fome profeffion of Friendship from you: Whatever was his real fhare in it, whether small or great, yet as your Lordfhip could never have had the leaft Lofs by continuing it, or the leaft Interest by withdrawing it; the misfortune of lofing it, I fear, must have been owing to his own deficiency or neglect. But as to any actual fault which deserved to forfeit it in fuch a degree, he protests he is to this day guiltlefs and ignorant. It could at most be but a fault of omiffion; but indeed by omiffions, men of your Lordship's uncommon merit may sometimes think themselves fo injur'd, as to be capable of an inclination to injure another; who, tho' very much below their quality, may be above the injury.

I never heard of the leaft displeasure you had conceived against me, till I was told that an imitation I had made of + Horace had offended some perfons,

* All their bus' nefs is to dress, and vote.

+ The firft Satire of the fecond Book, printed in 1732.

and

*

and among them your Lordship. I could not have ap prehended that a few general strokes about a Lord fcribling carelefly a Pimp, or a Spy at Court, a Sharper in a gilded chariot, &c. that thefe, I fay, fhould be ever applied as they have been, by any malice but that which is the greatest in the world, the Malice of Ill people to themselves.

Your Lordship fo well knows (and the whole Court and town thro' your means fo well know) how far the refentment was carried upon that imagination, not only in the Nature of the Libelt you propagated against me, but in the extraordinary manner, place, and prefence in which it was propagated; that I fhall only fay, it feem'd to me to exceed the bounds of juftice, common sense, and de

cency.

I wonder yet more, how a Lady, of great wit, beauty, and fame for her poetry (between whom and your Lordfhip there is a natural, a juft, and a well-grounded efteem) could be prevail'd upon to take a part in that proceeding. Your refentments against me indeed might be equal, as my offence to you both was the fame; for neither had I the least mifunderstanding with that Lady, till after I was the Author of my own misfortune in difcontinuing her acquaintance. I may venture to own a truth, which cannot be unpleafing to either of you; I affure you my reafon for fo doing, was merely that you had both too much wit for me ||; and that I could

*He fhould have added, that he called this Nobleman, who feribled fo carelefly, Lord Fanny..

Verfes to the Imitator of Horace, afterwards printed by J. Roberts 1732. fol.

It was for this reafon that this Letter, as foon as it was printed, was communicated to the Q

Once, and but once, his heedlefs youth was bit, And lik'd that dangerous thing a female Wit. See the Letter to Dr. Arbuthnot amongst the Variations

not do, with mine, many things which you could with yours. The injury done you in withdrawing. myself could be but small, if the value you had for me was no greater than you have been pleas'd fince to profefs. But furely, my Lord, one may say, neither the Revenge, nor the Language you held, bore any proportion to the pretended offence: The appellations of * Foe to humankind, an Enemy like the Devil to all that have Being; ungrateful, unjust, deferving to be whipt, blanketed, kicked, nay killed; a Monster, an Affaffin, whofe converfation every man ought to fhun, and against whom all doors fhould be fhut; I beseech you, my Lord, had you the leaft right to give, or to encourage or juftify any other in giving fuch language as this to me? Could I be treated in terms more ftrong or more atrocious, if, during my acquaintance with you, I had been a Betrayer, a Backbiter, a Whisperer, an Eves-dropper, or an Informer? Did I in all that time ever throw a falfe Dye, or palm a foul Card upon you? Did I ever borrow, fleal, or accept, either Money, Wit, or Advice from you? Had I ever the honour to join with either of you in one Ballad, Satire, Pamphlet, or Epigram, on any person living or dead? Did I ever do you fo great an injury as to put off my own Verfes for yours, efpecially on thofe Persons whom they might moft offend? I am confident you cannot anfwer in the affirmative; and I can truly affirm, that ever fince I loft the happiness of your converfation I have not published or written, one fyllable of, or to either of you; never hitch'd your names in a Verfe, or trifled with your good names in company. Can I be honestly charged with any other crime but an Omiffion (for the word Neglect, which I us'd before, flip'd my pen unguardedly) to continue my admiration of you all my life, and ftill to contemplate, face

* See the aforefaid Verses to the Imitater of Horace.