from me. Mr. Wycherley came to town on Sunday laft, and kindly furprized me with a vifit on Monday morning. We dined and drank together; and I faying, To our Loves, he reply'd, 'Tis Mr. Pope's health: He faid he would go to Mr. Thorold's and leave a letter for Tho' I cannot you. answer for the event of all this, in respect to him; yet I can affure you, that, when you pleafe to come, you will be moft defirable to me, as always by inclination, fo now by duty, who shall ever be

Your, &c.

LETTER XXIX.

Nov. 12, 1711.

I

Received the entertainment of your letter the day after I had sent you one of mine, and I am but this morning returned hither. The news you tell me of the many difficulties you found in your return from 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 inconveniencies of the rough roads, the hard faddle, the trotting horse, 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, fet you on an eafier pad, and relieved the wandring knight with a night's lodging and rural repaft, at our caftle in the foreft? But these are only the pleafing imaginations of a difappointed lover, who muft fuffer in a melancholy absence yet thefe two months. In the mean time, I take up with the Mufes for want of your better company; the Mufes, quæ nobifcum pernoctant, peregrinantur, ruflicantur. Thofe aërial ladies juft discover enough

to

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 a taining those favours from them, which they confer on their more happy admirers. We grasp some more beautiful idea in our own brain, than our endeavours to express it can fet to the view of others; and ftill 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 those 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 pleased with the knowledge you give me of Mr. Wycherley's prefent temper, which feems fo favourable to me. I fhall ever have fuch a fund of affection for him as to be agreeable to myfelf 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, just as the fun is brighter or more over-caft-I fhould be glad to see the verfes to Lintot which you mention, for, methinks, fomething oddly agreeable may be produced from that fubject For what remains, I am fo well, that nothing but the affurance of your being fo can make me better; and if you would have me live with any fatisfaction thefe dark days in which I cannot fee you, it must be by your writing fometimes to

Your, &c.

LET

MR

LETTER XXX.

From Mr. CROMWEL L.

Dec. 7, 1711.

like

R. Wycherley has, I believe, fent you two or three letters of invitation; but you, the fair, will be long follicited 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 feems confin'd to you and I fhould take him for your mistress 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 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 close engagement. Leave Elegy and tranflation to the inferior clafs, 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 Criticifm. 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 fharp-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 esteem, like that of Pompey) must infallibly affure you of success;

for

for which in all your wishes you will be attended with thofe of

Your, &c.

LETTER XXXI.

Dec. 21, 1711

F I have not writ to you fo 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 fineft faces in the universe. But indeed 'tis fome confolation to me to reflect, that while I but write this period, I escape fome 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 circumftances; you that are fo nice an admirer of beauty, or (as a Critic would say after Terence) fo elegant a spectator 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 outshine the golden god of day and filver goddefs 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 gefture together, let her put her body into what moving poftures fhe pleases. Indeed, indeed, my friend, you could never have found fo improper a time to tempt me with intereft or ambition: 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

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 Translation for a Waiting-maid! Alas! what have I to do with Jane Gray, as long as Mifs Molly, Mifs Betty, or Miss Patty are in this world? Shall I write of beauties murdered long ago, when there are those at this inftant that murder me? I'll e'en compose my own Tragedy, and the poet fhall appear in his own perfon to move compaffion: "Twill be far more effectual than Bays's entring with a rope about his neck, and the world will own, there never was a more miferable object brought upon the ftage.

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) fhould 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 troubled with in the oppofite page: take it as you find it, the production of half an hour t'other morning. I defign very soon to put a task of a more serious 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 perfon with how much fidelity I am

Your, &c.

Thefe verfes are printed in Dr. Swift's, and our Au

thor's Mifcellanies.

P.

LET