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order with my colical complaints, so as to make me uneafy and difpirited, tho' not to any violent degree. The reception we met with, and the little excurfions we made, were every way agreeable. I think the country abounds with beautiful profpects. Sir William Wyndham is at prefent amufing himself with fome real improvements, and a great many vifionary caftles. We were often entertain'd with fea views and fea fish, and were at fome places in the neighbourhood, among which, I was mightily pleased with Dunstar-Castle near Minehead. It stands upon a great eminence, and hath a profpect of that town, with an extensive view of the Bristol Channel, in which are feen two fmall Islands call'd the Steep Holms and Flat Holms, and on t'other fide we could plainly distinguish the divifions of fields on the Welsh coaft. All this journey I perform'd on horseback, and I am very much difappointed that at present I feel myself fo little the better for it. I have indeed followed riding and exercise for three months fucceffively, and really think I was as well without it; fo that I begin to fear the illness I have fo long and so often complain'd of, is inherent in my constitution, and that I have nothing for it but patience *.

As to your advice about writing Panegyric, 'tis what I have not frequently done. I have indeed done it fometimes against my judgment and inclinations, and I heartily repent of it. And at prefent, as I have no defire of reward, and fee no just reafon of praise, * Mr Gay died the November following at the.Duke of Queens berry's houfe in London, aged 46 years.

I think I had better let it alone.

good enough to be found, and I

There are flatterers

would not interfere

in any Gentleman's profeffion. I have seen no verses on thefe fublime occafions; fo that I have no emulation: Let the patrons enjoy the authors, and the authors their patrons, for I know myself unworthy.

LETTER XXV.

Mr CLELAND to Mr GAY*.

I am,

&c.

Decemb. 16. 1731.

Am astonish'd at the complaints occafion'd by a late I Epistle to the Earl of Burlington; and I should be afflicted were there the least just ground for them. Had the writer attack'd Vice, at a time when it is not only tolerated but triumphant, and fo far from being conceal'd as a Defect, that it is proclaimed with oftentation as a Merit; I fhould have been apprehenfive of the confequence: Had he fatirized Gamefters of a hundred thousand pounds fortune, acquir'd by fuch methods as are in daily practice, and almost universally encouraged: had he over-warmly defended the Religion of his country, against fuch books as come from every press, are publickly vended in every shop, and greedily bought by almost every rank of men; or had he called our excellent weekly writers by the fame names which they openly bestow on the greatest men

*This was written by the fame hand that wrote the Letter to the Publisher, prefixed to the Dunciad.

in the Ministry, and out of the Miniftry, for which they are all unpunished, and moft rewarded: In any of these cafes, indeed, I might have judged him too prefumptuous, and perhaps have trembled for his rashnefs.

I could not but hope better for this fmall and modeft Epiftle, which attacks no one Vice whatsoever; which deals only in Folly, and not Folly in general, but a fingle fpecies of it; that only branch, for the oppofite excellency to which the Noble Lord to whom it is written muft neceffarily be celebrated. I fancied it might efcape cenfure, especially seeing how tenderly thefe follies are treated, and really less accused than apologized for.

Yet hence the Poor are cloath'd, the Hungry fed,
Health to himself, and to his Infants Bread

The Lab'rer bears.

Is this fuch a crime, that to impute it to a man must be a grievous offence? 'Tis an innocent Folly, and much more beneficent than the want of it; for ill Tafte employs more hands, and diffufes expence, more than a good one. Is it a moral defect? No; it is but a natural one; a want of tafte. It is what the beft good man living may be liable to. The worthiest Peer may live exemplarily in an ill favour'd houfe, and and the best reputed citizen be pleased with a vile garden. I thought (I fay) the author had the common liberty to obferve a defect, and to compliment a friend for a quality that diftinguishes him: which I know not

how any quality should do, if we were not to remark that it was wanting in others.

But, they fay, the fatire is perfonal. I thought it could not be fo, because all its reflections are on things. His reflections are not on the man, but his house, garden, &c. Nay, he refpects (as one may fay) the Perfons of the Gladiator, the Nile, and the Triton: he is only forry to see them (as he might be to fee any of his friends) ridiculous by being in the wrong place, and in bad company. Some fancy, that to say, a thing is Personal, is the fame as to fay, it is Injult, not confidering, that nothing can be just that is not Perfo nal. "I am afraid that all fuch writings and discourses 66 as touch no man, will mend no nian." The good natured, indeed, are apt to be alarmed at any thing like fatire; and the guilty readily concur with the weak, for a plain reason, because the vicious look upon folly as their frontier:

Jam proximus ardet
Ucalegon.

No wonder those who know ridicule belongs to them, find an inward consolation in removing it from themfelves as far as they can; and it is never fo far, as when they can get it fixed on the best characters. No wonder those who are Food for Satirifts (hould rail at them as creatures of prey; every beast born for our ufe would be ready to call a man fo.

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I know no remedy, unless people in our age would as little frequent the theatres, as they begin to do the churches; unless comedy were forsaken, fatire filent, and every man left to do what seems good in his own eyes, as if there were no King, no Priest, no Poet, in Ifrael.

But I find myself obliged to touch a point, on which I must be more ferious: it well deferves I fhould I mean the malicious application of the character of Timon, which, I will bodly fay, they would impute to the person the most different in the world from a Man-hater, to the person whose taste and encouragement of wit have often been shewn in the righteft place. The author of that epiftle muft certainly think fo, if he has the fame opinion of his own merit as authors generally have; for he has been diftinguished by this very perfon.

Why, in God's name, must a Portrait, apparently collected from twenty different men, be applied to one only? Has it his eye? no, it is very unlike. Has it his nofe or mouth? no, they are totally differing. What then, I beseech you? Why, it has the mole on his chin. Very well; but muft the picture therefore be his, and has no other man that blemish?

Could there be a more melancholy inftance how much the taste of the public is vitiated, and turns the most falutary and seasonable physic into poison, than if amidst the blaze of a thousand bright qualities in a great man, they fhould only remark there is a fhadow aIbout him; as what eminence is without? I am con

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