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figure as Single Maxims and Reflections in profe, after the manner of your favourite Rochefoucault, than in verfe*: Add this, when nothing more is done but marking the repetions in the margin, will be an easy task to proceed upon, notwithstanding the bad Memory you complain of, I am unfeignedly, dear

Sir,

Your, &c.

A. POPE.

* Mr Wycherley lived five years after, to December, 1715, but little progrefs was made in this defign, thro' his old age, and the increase of his infirmities. However, fome of the Verfes, which had been touch'd by Mr P. with cccv111 of these Maxims in Profe, were found among his papers, which having the misfortune to fall into the hands of a mercenary, were published in 1728 in octavo, under the title of The Pofthumous Works of William Wycherley, Efq;

LETTERS

TO AND FROM

W. WALSH *,

Efq;

From the Year 1705 to 1707.

I

LETTER I.

Mr WALSH to Mr WYCHERLEY.

April 20. 1705.

Return you the† Papers you favour'd me with, and had fent them to you yesterday morning, but that I thought to have brought them to you last night myself. I have read them over feveral times with great fatisfaction. The Preface is very judicious and very learned; and the Verfes very tender and easy. The Author feems to have a particular genius for that kind of poetry, and a judgment that much exceeds the years you told me he was of. He has taken very freely from the ancients; but what he has mixed of his own with theirs, is not inferior to what he has

* Of Abberley in Worcestershire, Gentleman of the Horse in Queen Anne's reign, Author of feveral beautiful pieces in Profe and Verfe, and in the opinion of Mr Dryden (in his Postscript to Virgil) the best Critic of our Nation in his time.

Mr Pope's Paftorals.

taken from them. 'Tis no flattery at all to fay, that Virgil had written nothing fo good at his age *. I fhall take it as a favour if you will bring me acquainted with him; and if he will give himself the trouble any morning to call at my house, I fhall be very glad. to read the verses over with him, and give him my opinion of the particulars more largely than I can well do in this letter. I am, Sir, &c.

I

LETTER II.

Mr WALSH to Mr Por E.

June 24. 1706.

Received the favour of your letter, and fhall be very glad of the continuance of a correspondence by which I am like to be fo great a gainer. I hope, when I have the happiness of seeing you again in London, not only to read over the verses I have now of yours, but more that you have writen fince; for I make no doubt, but any who writes fo well, must write more. Not that I think the most voluminous poets always the beft; I believe the contrary is rather true. I mentioned fomewhat to you in London of a Paftoral Comedy, which I fhould be glad to hear you had thought upon fince, I find Menage, in his observations upon Taffo's Aminta, reckons up fourscore paftoral plays in Italian: and in looking over my old Italian books, I find a great many paftoral and pifcatory plays, which I fuppofe Menage reckons together. I find alfo by Menage, that Taffo is not the first that writ in that kind, he mentioning another before

* Sixteen.

him which he himself had never feen, nor indeed have I. But as the Aminta, Paftor Fido, and Filli di Sciro of Bonarelli are the three beft, fo, I think, there is no dispute but Aminta is the best of the three: not but that the difcourfes in Paftor Fido are more entertaining and copious in feveral people's opinion, tho' not fo proper for paftoral: and the fable of Bonarelli more furprizing. I do not remember many in other languages, that have written in this kind with fuccefs, Racans Bergeries are much inferior to his lyric poems; and the Spaniards are all too full of conceits. Rapin will have the defign of Paftoral plays to be taken from the Cyclops of Euripides. I am fure there is nothing of this kind in English worth mentioning, and therefore you have that field open to yourself. You fee I write to you without any fort of constraint or method, as things come into my head, and therefore use the fame freedom with me, who am, &c.

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Windfor Foreft, July 2. 1706. Cannot omit the firft opportunity of making you my acknowledgments for reviewing those papers of nine. You have no less right to correct me, than the fame hand that rais'd a tree has to prune it. I am convinced as well as you that one may correct too much; for in poetry, as in painting, a man may day colours one upon another till they stiffen and deaden the piece. Befides, to bestow heightening on every

part is monstrous: fome parts ought to be lower than the reft; and nothing looks more ridiculous than 2 work, where the thoughts, however different in their own nature, feem all on a level: 'tis like a meadow newly mown, where weeds, grafs, and flowers, are all laid even, and appear undiftinguifh'd. I believe too that fometimes our first thoughts are the best, as the first fqueezing of the grapes makes the fineft and richeft wine.

I have not attempted any thing of a Paftoral come. dy, because, I think, the taste of our age will not relith a poem of that fort. People feek for what they call wit, on all fubjects, and in all places; not confidering that nature loves truth fo well, that it hardly ever admits of flourishing: Conceit is to nature what paint is to beauty; it is not only needlefs, but impairs what it would improve. There is a certain majesty in fimplicity, which is far above all the quaintnefs of wit: infomuch that the critics have excluded wit from the loftieft poetry, as well as the lowest, and forbid it to the Epic no less than the Pastoral. I fhould certainly displease all those who are charmed with Guarini and Bonarelli, and imitate Taffo not only in the fimplicity of his Thoughts, but in that of the Fable too. If furprizing discoveries, should take place in the story of a paftoral comedy, I believe it would be more agreeable to probability to make them the effects of chance than of design intrigue not being very confiftent with that innocence, which ought to constitute a fhepherd's character. There is nothing in all the Aminta (as I remember) but happens by mere accident; unless it be the meeting of Aminta with Sylvia at the fountain, VOL. V.

G

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