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LETTER

XXXV. Answer to the former.

XXXVI. From the Earl of Peterborow. His dif like of coming to town: The Charitable Corporation; more concerning women.

XXXVII. From the Earl of Peterborow from his garden: bis idea of the Golden Age, and unwillingness to come to town.

XXXVIII. From the fame. Difire to fee Dr. Swift. Alteration in his paffions, and from whence.

XXXIX. From Dr. Swift to the Earl of Peterborow.

XL. A confultation about defigning a garden: Various opinions, and fome general reflections.

XLI. To Mr. C

expoftulatory on the hardships

done an unhappy lady, &c.

XLII. To Mr. Richardson.

XLIII. To the fame; after Mrs. Pope's death.

XLIV. To the fame.

XLV. To Mr. B. concerning the Effay on Man, &c. XLVI. Concern for the loss of friends.

XLVII. From Dr. Arbuthnot in his laft fickness. His dying request to the author.

XLVIII. The answer.

The character of Katharine late Duchefs of Buckinginghamshire and Normanby

P. 182

ERRAT A.

Page 9. 1. 14. for inceptu, r. incepto. 106. Letter II. for 1721, r. 1712.

176. 1. 21. for saw, r. I saw.

LETTERS

TO AND FROM

EDWARD BLOUNT, Efq.

From 1714 to 1725.

LETTER I.

Mr. POPE to EDWARD BLOUNT, Efq.

W

August 27, 1714.

Hatever ftudies on the one hand, or amusements on the other, it fhall be my fortune to fall into, I fhall be equally incapable of forgetting you in any of them. The task I undertook*, though of weight enough in itself, has had a voluntary increase by the inlarging my defign of the Notes +; and the neceffity of confulting a number of books has carry'd me to Oxford: but, I fear, thro' my Lord Harcourt's and Dr. Clarke's means, I fhall be more converfant with the pleasures and company of

*The Tranflation of Homer's Iliad.

P.

The notes on the Iliad were his own: Thofe on the Odyffey were Dr. Broome's. But they speak their respective Authors.

VOL. VIII.

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the place, than with the books and manuscripts of

it.

I find ftill more reafon to complain of the negligence of the Geographers in their Maps of old Greece, fince I look'd upon two or three more noted names in the public libraries here. But with all the care I am capable of, I have some cause to fear the engraver will prejudice me in a few fituations. I have been forced to write to him in fo high a ftyle, that, were my epiftle intercepted, it would raise no fmall admiration in an ordinary man. There is scarce an order in it of lefs importance, than to remove fuch and fuch mountains, alter the courfe of fuch and fuch rivers, place a large city on fuch a coast, and raze another in another country. I have fet bounds to the fea, and faid to the land, Thus far fhalt thou advance, and no further * In the mean time, I who talk and command at this rate, am in danger of lofing horse, and stand in fome fear of a country Juftice t. To difarm me indeed may be but prudential, confidering what armies I have at prefent on foot, and in my fervice; a hundred thousand Grecians are no contemptible body; for all that I can tell, they may be as formidable as four thoufand Priefts; and they feem proper forces to fend against those in Barcelona. That fiege deferves as fine a poem as the Iliad, and the machining part of poetry would be the jufter in it, as, they say, the inhabitants expect Angels from heaven to their affiftance. May I venture to say who am a Papift, and fay to you who are a Papift, that nothing is

my

*This relates to the Map of ancient Greece, laid down by our Author in his obfervations on the fecond Iliad.

P.

+ Some of the Laws were, at this time, put in force against the Papists.

more

more aftonishing to me, than that people fo greatly warm'd with a fenfe of Liberty, fhould be capable of harbouring fuch weak fuperftition *, and that fo much bravery aud fo much folly can inhabit the fame breafts?

I could not but take a trip to London on the death of the Queen, mov'd by the common curio. fity of mankind, who leave their own business to be looking upon other mens. I thank God, that, as for myself, I am below all the accidents of statechanges by my circumftances, and above them by my philofophy. Common charity of man to man, and univerfal good-will to all, are the points I have moft at heart; and, I am sure, those are not to be broken for the fake of any governors, or government. I am willing to hope the beft, and what I more wish than my own or any particular man's advancement, is, that this turn may put an end entirely to the divifions of Whig and Tory; that the parties may love each other as well as I love them both, or at least hurt each other as little as I would either and that our own people may live as quietly as we shall certainly let theirs; that is to fay, that want of power itself in us may not be a furer prevention of harm, than want of will in them. I am fure, if all Whigs and all Tories had the spirit of one Roman Catholic that I know, it would be well for all Roman Catholics; and if all Roman Catholics had always had that spirit, it had been well for all others; and we had never been charged with so wicked a spirit as that of Perfecution.

I agree with you in my fentiments of the state of our nation fince this change: I find myself juft

* Were not the old Romans as warm'd and as weak? And could a man, inflamed with the love of civil Liberty, which he fees falling a prey to Tyranny, imagine a caufe more worthy the interpofition of Heaven?

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