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Bath, gives me fuch a kind of pleasure as we ufually take in accompanying our friends in their mix'd adventures; for, methinks, I fee you labouring thro' all your inconveniences of the rough roads, the hard saddle, the trotting horfe, and what not? What an agreeable furprize would it have been to me, to have met you by pure accident (which I was within an ace of doing) and to have carried you off triumphantly, set you on an easier pad, and relieved the wandring knight with a night's lodging and rural repaft, at our castle in the forest? But thefe are only the pleafing imaginations of a disappointed lover, who inuft fuffer in a melancholy abfence yet these two months. In the mean time, I take up with the Muses for want of your better company; the Mufes, quæ nobifcum pernoctart, perigrinantur, rufticantur. Those aërial ladies just discover enough to me of their beauties to urge my purfuit, and draw me on in a wandering maze of thought, ftill in hopes (and only in hopes) of attaining those favours from them, which they confer on their more happy admirers. We grafp fome more beautiful idea in our own brain, than our endeavours to exprefs it can fet to the view of others; and still do but labour to fall fhort of our firft imagination. The gay colouring which fancy gave at the first tranfient glance we had of it, goes off in the execution: like thofe various figures in the gilded clouds, which while we gaze long upon, to feparate the parts of each imaginary image, the whole faints before the eye, and decays into confufion.

I am highly pleas'd with the knowledge you give me of Mr Wycherley's prefent temper, which feems

fo favourable to me. I shall ever have such a fund of affection for him, as to be agreeable to myself when I am so to him, and cannot but be gay when he is in good humour, as the furface of the earth (if you will pardon a poetical fimilitude) is clearer or gloomier, juft as the fun is brighter or more overcaft-I fhould be glad to fee the verses to Lintot which you mention; for, methinks, fomething oddly agreeable may be pro. duced from that fubject-For what remains, I am fo well, that nothing but the assurance of your being fo can make me better; and if you would have me live with any fatisfaction these dark days in which I cannot fee you, it must be by your writing sometimes to

Your, &c.

MR

LETTER XXX.

From Mr CROMWELL.

Dec. 7. 1711.

R Wycherley has, I believe, fent you two or three letters of invitation; but you, like the fair, will be long folicited before you yield, to make the favour the more acceptable to the lover. He is much yours by his talk; for that unbounded genius which has rang'd at large like a libertine, now seems confin'd to you: and I should take him for your miftrefs too by your fimile of the fun and earth: 'Tis very fine, but inverted by the application; for the gaiety of your fancy, and the drooping of his by the withdrawing of your luftre, perfuades me it would

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be jufter by the reverfe. Oh happy favourite of the Mufes! how pernoctare all night long with them? but alas! you do but toy, but fkirmish with them, and decline a clofe engagement. Leave Elegy and translation to the inferior class, on whom the Mufes only glance now and then like our winter-fun, and then leave them in the dark. Think on the dignity of Tragedy, which is of the greater poetry, as Dennis fays, and foil him at his other weapon, as you have done in Criticifin. Every one wonders that a genius like yours will not fupport the finking Drama: and Mr Wilks (tho', I think, his talent is Comedy) has exprefs'd a furious ambition to fwell in your bufkins. We have had a poor Comedy of Johnson's (not Ben) which held feven nights, and has got him three hundred pounds, for the town is sharp fet on new plays. In vain would I fire you by interest or ambition, when your mind is not fufceptible of either; tho' your authority (arifing from the general efteem, like that of Pompey) must infallibly affure you of fuccefs; for which, in all your wishes, you will be attended with

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LETTER XXXI.

Your, &c.

Dec. 21. 1711.

1

F I have not writ to you so foon as I ought, let my writing now atone for the delay; as it will infallibly do, when you know what a facrifice I make you at this time, and that every moment my eyes are employ'd upon this paper, they are taken off from

two of the finest faces in the univerfe. But indeed, 'tis fome confolation to me to reflect, that while. I but write this period, I escape some hundred fatal darts from thofe unerring eyes, and about a thousand deaths or better. Now you, that delight in dying, would not once have dreamt of an abfent friend in thefe circumstances; you that are so nice an admirer of beauty, or (as a Critic would fay after Terence) fo elegant a fpectator of forms; you must have a fober difh of coffee, and a folitary candle at your fide, to write an epiftle lucubratory to your friend; whereas I can do it as well with two pair of radiant lights, that outfhine the golden god of day and filver goddess of night and all the refulgent eyes of the firmament.-You. fancy now that Sappho's eyes are two of these my tapers, but it is no fuch matter; thefe are eyes that have more perfuafion in one glance than all Sappho's oratory and gesture together, let her put her body into what moving postures fhe pleafes. Indeed, indeed, my friend, you could never have found fo improper a time to tempt me with intereft or amibtion: let me but have the reputation of thefe in my keeping, and as for my own, let the devil, or let Dennis, take it for ever. How gladly would I give all I am worth, that is to fay, my Paftorals, for one of them, and my Effay for the other? I would lay out all my Poetry in Love; an Original for a Lady, and a Tranflation for a Waiting maid? Alas! what have I to do with Jane Gray, as long as Mifs Molly, Mifs Betty, or Mifs Patty are in this world? Shall I write of beauties murdered long ago, when there are thofe at this inftant that murder me? I'll e'en compofe my own Tragedy, and the poet fhall ap

pear in his own person to move compassion: 'Twill be far more effectual than Bay's entering with a rope about his neck, and the world will own, there never mas a more miserable object brought upon the stage.

Now you that are a critic, pray inform me, in what manner I may connect the foregoing part of this letter with that which is to follow, according to the rules? I would willingly return Mr Gay my thanks for the favour of his poem, and in particular for his kind mention of me; I hoped, when I heard a new Comedy had met with fuccefs upon the stage, that it had been his, to which I really wish no less; and (had it been any way in my power) should have been very glad to have contributed to its introduction into the world. His verfes to Lintot have put a whim into my head, which you are like to be trou bled with in the oppofite page: take it as you find it, the production of half an hour t'other morning. I defign very foon to put a task of a more ferious nature upon you, in reviewing a piece of mine that may better deferve criticism; and by that time you have done with it, I hope to tell you in person with how much fidelity I am

Your, &c.

• These verfes are printed in Dr Swift's, and our Author's Mifcellanies.

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