fuch as with us well, to know we enjoy that. I therefore thank you particularly for telling me of the continuance, or rather increase of thofe bleffings which make your domeftic life happy. I have nothing so good to add, as to affure you I pray for it, and am always faithfully and affectionately, &c.

LETTER XCIV.

Mr POPE to Mr ALLEN.

Twickenham, April 28. 1738.

Tis a pain to me to hear your old complaint fo troublesome to you; and the fhare I have borne and ftill bear too often, in the fame complaint, gives me a very feeling fenfe of it. I hope we agree in every other fenfation befides this; for your heart is always right, whatever your body may be. I will venture too to say, my body is the worst part of me, or God have mercy on my foul. I can't help telling you the rapture you accidentally gave the poor woman (for whom you left a Guinea, on what I told you of my finding her at the end of my garden.) I had no notion of her want being fo great, as I then told her half a one. you, when I gave But I find I have a pleasure to come; for I will allow her fomething yearly, and that may be but one year, for, I think, by her looks, she is not less than eighty. I am determined to take this charity out of your hands, which, I know, you'll think hard upon you. But fo it fhall be.

Pray tell me, if you have any objection to my putting your name into a poem of mine (incidentally, not at all going out of the way for it) provided I say fomething of you, which most people would take ill; for example, that you are no man of high birth or quality? You must be perfectly free with me on this, as on any, nay, on every other occafion.

I have nothing to add but my wishes for your health every other enjoyment you will provide for yourself, which becomes a reasonable man. Adieu. I am, &c.

I

LETTER XCV.

Mr POPE to Mr ALLEN.

Jan. 20. Ought fooner to have acknowledged yours; but I have been feverely handled by my Afthma, and, at the fame time, hurried by business that gave an increase to it by catching cold. I am truly forry to find that neither yours nor Mrs A's diforder is totally removed: but God forbid your pain should cons tinue to return every day, which is worse by much than I expected to hear. I hope your next will give me a better account. Poor Mr Bethel too is very ill in Yorkshire. And, I do affure you, there are not two men I wish better to. I have known and esteemed him for every moral virtue these twenty years and more. He has all the charity, without any of the weakness of

; and, I firmly believe, never faid

a thing did not think, nor did a thing he could not tell. I am concern'd he is in fo cold and remote a place, as in the Wolds of Yorkshire, at a huntingfeat. If he lives till fpring, he talks of returning to London, and, if I poffibly can, I would get him to lie out of it at Twickenham, though we went backward and forward every day in a warm coach,. which would be the propereft exercise for both of us, fince he is become fo weak as to be deprived of riding a horse.

;.

L. Bolingbroke stays a month yet, and I hope Mr Warburton will come to town before he goes. They will both be pleased to meet each other and nothing in all my life, has been fo great a pleasure to my nature, as to bring deferving and knowing men together. It is the greatest favour that can be done either to great genius's or useful men. I wish too, he were a while in town, if it were only to lie a little in the way of fome proud and powerful perfons, to fee if they have any of the best fort of pride left, namely, to ferve learning and merit, and by that means diftinguish themselves from their predecessors.

LETTER XCVI.

Mr POPE to Mr ALLEN.

March 6.

I

Thank you very kindly for yours. I am sure we

fhall meet with the fame hearts we ever met; and I could wish it were at Twickenham, tho' only to see you and Mrs Allen twice there instead of once. But, as matters have turned out, a decent obedience to the government has fince obliged me to refide here, ten miles out of the capital; and therefore. I must fee you here, or no where Let that be an additional reafon for your coming and ftaying what time you

can.

The utmost I can do, I will venture to tell you in your ear. I may flide along the Surrey-fide (where no Middlesex justice can pretend any cognizance) to Batterfea, and thence cross the water for an hour or two, in a clofe chair, to dine with you or fo. But to be in town, I fear, will be imprudent, and thought infolent. At least, hitherto, all comply with the proclamation *.

I write thus early, that you may let me know if your day continues, and I will have every room in my house as warm for you as the owner always would be. It may poffibly be, that I fhall be taking the

* On the Invasion, at that time threatened from France and the Pretender.

fecret flight I speak of to Batterfea, before you come, with Mr Warburton, whom I have promised to make known to the only great man in Europe, who knows as much as He. And from thence we may return the 16th, or any day, hither, and meet you, without fail, if you fix your day.

I would not make ill health come into the scale, as to keeping me here (tho' in truth, it now bears very hard upon me again, and the least accident of cold, or motion almost, throws me into a very dangerous and fuffering condition.) God fend you long life, and an easier enjoyment of your breath than I noW can expect. I fear, &c.