but as to the fecret grounds of this malignity, they will make a very pleasant history when we meet. Mr Congreve and fome others have been much diverted with it, and moft of the gentlemen of the Hanover Club have made it the fubject of their ridicule on their Secretary. It is to this management of Philips, that the world owes Mr Gay's Pastorals. The ingenious author is extremely your fervant, and would have complied with your kind invitation, but that he is just now appointed Secretary to my Lord Clarendon, in his embassy to Hanover.

I am fenfible of the zeal and friendship with which I am fure, you will always defend your friend in his abfence, from all thofe little tales and calumnies which a man of any genius or merit is born to. I fhall never complain while I am happy in fuch noble defenders, and in fuch contemptible opponents. May their envy and ill-nature ever increase, to the glory and pleasure of those they would injure; may they reprefent me what they will, as long as you think me, what I am,

LETTER XVIII.

Your, &c.

July 13. 1714.

OU mention the account I gave you fome time.

You

ago, of the things which Philips faid in his foolifhnefs: but I can't tell from any thing in your letter, whether you received a long one. from me about a fortnight fince. It was principally intended to thank you for the laft obliging favour you did me; and perhaps for that reason you pass it in filence.

7.

I there launch'd into fome account of my temporal affairs, and intend now to give you fome hints of my fpiritual. The conclufion of your letter draws this upon you, where you tell me you prayed for me. Your proceeding, Sir, is contrary to that of most other friends, who never talk of praying for a man after they have done him a fervice, but only when they will do him none. Nothing can be more kind than the hint you give me of the vanity of human fciences, which, I affure you, I am daily more convinced of; and indeed I have, for fome years past, look d upon all of them no better than amusements. To make them the ultimate end of our purfuit, is a miferable and short ambition, which will drop from us at every little difappointment here, and even, in cafe of no difappointments here, will infallibly defert us hereafter. The utmost fame they are capable of beftowing, is never worth the pains they coft us, and the time they lofe us. If you attain the top of your desires that way, all those who envy you will do you harm; and of those who admire you, few will do you good. The unfuccefsful writers are your declared enemies, and probably the successful your fecret ones: for those hate not more to be excelled, than these to be ri val'd: And, at the upshot, after a life of perpetual application, you reflect that you have been doing nothing for yourself, and that the same or less industry might have gain'd you a friendship that can never deceive or end, a fatisfaction which praise cannot bestow nor vanity feel, and a glory, which (though in one respect like fame, not to be had till after death) yet fhall be felt and enjoyed to eternity. Thefe, dear Sir,

are unfeignedly my fentiments, whenever I think at all: for half the things that employ our heads deserve not the name of thoughts, they are only stronger dreams of impreffions upon the imagination: our schemes of government, our fyftems of philofophy, our golden worlds of poetry, are all but so many fhadowy images, and airy prospects which arise to us but so much the livelier and more frequent, as we are more overcaft with the darkness, and disturbed with the fumes of human vanity.

The same thing that makes old men willing to leave this world, makes me willing to leave poetry, long habit and weariness of the fame track. Homer will work a cure upon me; fifteen thousand verses are equivalent to fourfcore years, to make one old in rhyme: and I should be forry and afhamed, to go on jingling to the last step, like a waggoner's hotfe, in the fame road, and fo leave my bells to the next filly animal that will be proud of them. That man makes a mean figure in the eyes of reafon, who is measuring fyllables and coupling rhymes, when he should be mending his own foul, and fecuring his own immortality. If I had not this opinion, I should be unworthy even of those fmall and limited parts which God has given me; and unworthy of the friendship of fuch a man as you. I

am

Your, &c.

I

LETTER XIX.

July 25. 1714.

Have no better excufe to offer you, that I have omitted a task naturally fo pleafing to me, as converfing upon paper with you, but that my time and eyes have been wholly employ'd upon Homer, whom, I almost fear, I fhall find but one way of imitating, which is in his blindness. I am perpetually afflicted with head-achs that very much affect my fight, and indeed fince my coming hither I have scarce past an hour agreeably, except that in which I read your letter. I would seriously have you think, you have no man who more truly knows to place a right value on your friendship, than he who least deferves it on all other accounts than his due fense of it. But, let me tell you, you can hardly guess what a tafk you undertake, when you profefs yourself my friend; there are fome Tories who will take you for a Whig, fome Whigs who will take you for a Tory, fome Proteftants who will efteem you a rank Papist, and fome Papifts who will account you a Heretic.

I find by dear experience, we live in an age, where it is criminal to be moderate, and where no one man can be allowed to be just to all men. The notions of right and wrong are fo far ftrain'd, that perhaps to be in the right fo very violently, may be of worse confequence than to be eafily and quietly in the wrong. I really with all men fo well, that, I am fatisfied, but few can wish me fo; but if those few are fuch as tell me they do, I am content, for they are the best people

I know. While you believe me what I profefs as to religion, I can bear any thing the bigotted may say; while Mr Congreve likes my poetry, I can endure Dennis, and a thousand more like him; while the noft honest and moral of each party think me no ill man, I can easily bear that the most violent and mad of all parties rife up to throw dirt at me.

I must expect an hundred attacks upon the publication of my Homer. Whoever in our times would be a profeffor of learning above his fellows, ought at the very first to enter the world with the conftancy and refolution of a primitive Chriftian, and be prepared to fuffer all fort of public perfecution. It is certainly to be lamented, that if any man does but endeavour to diftinguish himself, or gratify others by his studies, he is immediately treated as a common enemy, instead of being looked upon as a common friend; and affaulted as generally as if his whole defign were to prejudice the State or ruin the Public. I wil venture to say, no man ever rose to any degree of perfection in writing, but through obftinacy, and an inveterate refolution against the stream of mankind: So that if the world has received any benefit from the labours of the learned, it was in its own defpite. For when first they essay their parts, all people in general are prejudiced against new beginners; and when they have got a little above contempt, then fome particular perfons, who were before unfortunate in their own attempts, are fworn foes to them, only because they fucceed. -Upon the whole, one may fay of the beft writers, that they pay a fevere fine for their fame, which it is always