penetration to tell, to what, or from what Princi ples, Parties, or Sentiments, Moral, Political, or Theological, I may have been converted, or perverted, in all that time. I befeech your Lordship to confider, the Injury a Man of your high Rank and Credit may do to a private Perfon under Penal Laws, and many other disadvantages, not for want of honefly or confcience, but merely perhaps for having too weak a head, or too tender a heart *. It is by thefe alone I have hitherto liv'd excluded from all posts of Profit or Trust: As I can interfere with the Views of no man, do not deny me, my Lord, all that is left, a little Praife, or the common Encouragement due, if not to my Genius, at leaft to my Industry.

Above all, your Lordship will be careful not to wrong my Moral Character, with THOSE + under whofe Protection I live, and thro' whofe Lenity alone I can live with Comfort. Your Lordship, I am confident, upon confideration, will think, you inadvertently went a little too far when you recommended to THEIR perufal, and strengthened by the weight of your Ap. probation, a Libel, mean in its reflections upon my poor figure, and scandalous in those on my Honour and Integrity: wherein I was reprefented as "an Enemy "to Human Race, a Murderer of Reputations, and a

Monfter marked by God like Cain, deferving to "wander accurs'd thro' the World."

A ftrange Picture of a Man, who had the good fortune to enjoy many friends, who will be always remember'd as the firft Ornaments of their Age and Country; and no Enemies that ever contriv'd to be heard of, except Mr John Dennis, and your Lordship: A Man, who never wrote a Line in which the Religion or Government of his Country, the Royal Family, or their Miniftry, were difrefpectfully mentioned; the Animofity of any one Party gratify'd at the expence of another; or any Cenfure past, but upon known Vice, acknowledg'd Folly, or aggressing Impertinence. It is with infinite pleasure he finds, that fome Men who feem afham'd and afraid of nothing else, are fo very fenfible of his Ridicule: And 'tis for that very reafon he refolves (by the grace of God, and your Lordfhip's good leave)

That, while he breathes, no rich or noble knave
Shall walk the world in credit to his grave.

This he thinks, is rendering the best Service he can to
the Public, and even to the good Government of his
Country; and for this, at least, he may deferve fome
Countenance, even from the GREATEST PERSONS in it.
Your Lordfhip knows or WHOм I fpeak. Their
NAMES I should be as forry, and as much asham'd, to
place near yours, on fuch an occafion, as 1 should be to
fee Tou, my Lord, placed fo near their PERSONS, if

if you could ever make so ill an Use of their Ear* as to asperse or misreprefent any one innocent Man.

This is all I fhall ever ask of your Lordship, except your pardon for this tedious Letter. I have the honour to be, with equal Refpect and Concern,

My Lord,

Your truly devoted Servant,

A. PO PE.

"Elofe at the ear of Eve."-Ep. to Dr Arbuthnot.

LETTERS

TO AND FROM

Dr JONATHAN SWIFT, &c.

From the Year 1714 to 1737

LETTER I.

Mr POPE to Dr SWIFT.

June 18. 1714.

W

HATEVER Apologies it might become

me to make at any other time for writing to you, I fhall ufe none now, to a man who has own'd himfelf as fplenetic as a Cat in the Country. In that circumftance, I know by experience a letter is a very ufeful, as well as amufing thing: If you are too busied in State-affairs to read it, yet you may find entertainment in folding it into divers figures, either doubling it into a pyramidical, or twifting it into a ferpentine form: or, if your difpofition fhould not be fo mathematical, in taking it with you to that place where men of studious minds are apt to fit longer than ordinary; where, after an abrupt divifion of the paper, it may not be unpleasant to try to fit and rejoin the broken lines together. All these amusements I am no

ftranger to in the Country, and doubt not but (bys this time) you begin to relish them, in your prefent contemplative fituation.

I remember a man, who was thought to have some knowledge in the world, ufed to affirm, that no people in town ever complained they were forgotten by their Friends in the country: but my increasing experience convinces me he was mistaken; for I find a great many here grievously complaining of you, upon this score. I am told further, that you treat the few you correfpond with in a very arrogant style, and tell them you admire at their infolence in difturbing your meditations, or even inquiring of your retreat: but this I will not positively affert, because I never received any fuch infulting Epistle from you. My Lord Oxford fays you have not written to him once fince you went: but this perhaps may be only policy, in him or you and I, who am half a Whig, must not entirely credit any thing he affirms. At Button's it is reported you are gone to Hanover, and that Gay goes only on an Embassy to you. Others apprehend fome dangerous State treatise from your retirement; and a Wit, who affects to imitate Balfac, fays, that the Miniftry now are like those Heathens of old, who received their Oracles from the Woods. The Gentlemen of the Roman Catholic perfuafion are not unwilling to crewhen I whisper, that you are gone to meet fome Jefuits commiffioned from the Court of Rome, in order to fettle the moft convenient methods to be taken for the coming of the Pretender. Dr Arbuth

dit

me,