you

too. Your love to the Country I do not doubt, nor do you (I hope) my love to it or you, fince there I can enjoy your company without feeing you in pain to give me fatisfaction and pleasure; there I can have you without rivals or difturbers; without the too ci vil, or the too rude: without the noife of the loud; or the cenfure of the filent: and wou'd rather have abufe me there with the truth, than at this distance with your compliment: fince now, your bufinefs of a friend, and kindness to a friend, is by finding fault with his faults, and mending them by your obliging feverity. I hope (in point of your goodnature) you will have no cruel charity for thofe pa pers of mine, you are fo willing to be troubled with; which I take moft infinitely kind of you, and fhall acknowledge with gratitude, as long as I live. No friend can do more for his friend than preferving his reputation (nay, not by preferving his life) fince by preferving his life he can only make him live about threefcore or fourscore years; but by preferving his reputation, he can make him live as long as the world lafts; fo fave him from damning, when he is gone to the devil. Therefore, I pray, condemn me in private, as the Thieves do their accomplices in Newgate, to fave them from condemnation by the public. Be moft kindly unmerciful to my poetical faults, and do with my papers,. as you country-gentlemen do with your trees, flash, cut, and lop off the excrefcencies and dead parts of my wither'd bays, that the little remainder may live the

longer,

longer, and increafe the value of them by diminishing the number. I have troubled you with my papers rather to give you pain than pleasure, notwithstanding your compliment, which fays you take the trouble kindly fuch is your generofity to your friends, that you take it kindly to be defired by them to do them a kindnefs; and you think it done to you, when they give you an opportunity to do it them. Wherefore you may be sure to be troubled' with my letters out of interest, if not kindness ; fince mine to you will urs to me: fo that procure yours I write to you more for my own fake than yours; lefs to make you think I write well, than to learn from you to write better. Thus you fee intereft in my kindness, which is like the friendship of the world, rather to make a friend than be a friend; but I am yours, as a true Plain-dealer.

LETTER XXIII.

From Mr. WYCHERLEY.

April 11, 1710. FI can do part of my bufinefs at Shrewsbury in fortnight's time (which I propofe to do) I will be foon after with you, and trouble you with my company, for the remainder of the fummer: in the mean time I beg you to give yourself the pains of altering, or leaving out what you think fuperfluous in my papers, that I may endeavour to print such a number

number of them as you and I fhall think fit, about Michaelmas next. In order to which (my dear friend) I beg you to be so kind to me, as to be severe to them; that the critics may be lefs fo; for I had rather be condemn'd by my friend in private, than expos'd to my foes in public, the critics, or common judges, who are made fuch by having been old offenders themselves. Pray, believe I have as much faith in your friendship and fincerity, as I have deference to your judgment; and as the best mark of a friend is telling his friend his faults in private, so the next is concealing them from the public, 'till they are fit to appear. In the mean time I am not a little fenfible of the great kindness you do me, in the trouble you take take for me, in putting my Rhimes in tune, fince good founds fet off often ill fenfe, as the Italian fongs, whofe good airs, with the worst words or meaning, make the best mufic; fo by your tuning my Welsh harp, my rough fenfe may be the less offenfive to the nicer ears of thofe critics, who deal more in found than fenfe. Pray then take pity at once both of my readers and me, in fhortning my barren abundance, and increafing their patience by it, as well as the obligations I have to you: And fince no madrigaller can entertain the head, unless he pleases the ear; and fince the crowded Opera's have left the best Comedies with the leaft audiences, 'tis a fign found can prevail over fense; therefore foften my words, and strengthen my sense, and

Eris mihi magnus Apollo.

LET

LETTER

XXIV.

178 noy élslag bliv April 15,51710.

Receiv'd your most extreme kind letter but just

I now. It found me over thofe papers you men

tion, which have been my employment ever since Eafter-monday: I hope before Michaelmas to have discharg'd my tafk; which, upon the word of a friend, is the most pleafing one I could be put upon. Since you are so near going into Shropshire, (whither I fhall not care to write of this matter for fear of the mifcarriage of any letters) I muft defire your leave to give you a plain and fincere account of what I have found from a more ferious application to them. Upon comparison with the former volume, I find much more repeated than I till now imagin'd, as well as in the prefent volume, which, if (as you told me laft) you would have me dash over with a line, will deface the whole copy extremely, and to a degree that (I fear) may displease you. I have every where mark'd in the margins the page and line, both in this and the other part. But if you order me not to cross the lines, or would any way elfe limit my commiffion, you will oblige me by doing it in your next letter; for I am at once equally fearful of fparing you, and of offending you by too impudent a correction. Hitherto however I have crofs'd 'em fo as to be legible, because you bade me. When I think all the repetitions are ftruck out in a copy, I

fometimes

fometimes find more upon dipping in the first volume, and the number increases fo much, that, I believe more fhortning will be requifite than you may be willing to bear with, unless you are in good earneft refolv'd to have no thought repeated. Pray, forgive this freedom, which as I must be fincere in this cafe, fo I could not but take; and let me know if I am to go on at this rate, or fcribe any other method.

G

if

you would

pre

your

refolution of

I am very glad you continue feeing me in my Hermitage this fummer; the fooner you return, the fooner I shall be happy, which indeed my want of any company that is entertaining or esteemable, together with frequent infirmities and pains, hinder me from being in your abfence.Tis (I am fure) a real truth, that my fickness cannot make me quite weary of myfelf when I have you with me; and I shall want no company but yours, when you are here.

You fee how freely and with how little care I talk rather than write to you: this is one of the many advantages of friendship, that one can fay to one's friend the things that stand in need of pardon, and at the fame time be fure of it. Indeed I do not know whether or no the letters of friends are the worse for being fit for none elfe to read. 'Tis an argument of the truft repofed in a friend's good nature, when one writes fuch things to him as require a good portion of it. I have experienced yours so often and fo

long,