I

May 10, 1710.

HAD not fo long omitted to exprefs my acknowledgments to you for fo much good nature and friendship as you lately thowed me; but that I am but just returned to my own hermitage, from Mr. C's, who has done me fo many favours, that I am almoft inclined to think my friends infect one another, and that your converfation with him has made him as obliging to me as yourfelf. I can affure you he has a fincere respect for you, and this, I believe, he has partly contracted from me, who am too full of you not to overflow upon thofe I converfe with. But I must now be contented to converfe only with the dead of this world, that is to fay, the dull and obfcure, every way obfcure, in their intellects as well as their perfous: or elfe have recourfe to the living dead, the old authors with whom you are fo well acquainted, even from Virgil down to Aulus Gellius, whom I do not think a critic by any means to be compared to Mr. Dennis: and I mutt declare pofitively to you, that I will perfift in this opinion, till you become a little more civil to Atticus. Who could have ima

gined that he, who had escaped all the misfortunes of his time, unhurt even by the profcriptions of Antony and Auguftus, fhould in thefe days' find an enemy more fevere and barbarous than thofe tyrants? and that enemy the genticit too, the beftnatured of mortals, Mr. Cromwell, whom I muft in this compare once more to Aagutus: who feemed not more unlike himfelf, in the feverity of one part of his life and the clemency of the other, I leave you to reflect on this and hope that time (which mollifies rocks, and of itiff things makes limber) will turn a refolute critic to a gentle reader; and inftead of this pofitive, tremendous newfafhioned Mr. Cromwell, restore unto us our old acquaintance, the foft, beneficent, and courteous Mr. Cromwell.

than you.

1 expect much, towards the civilizing of you in your critical capacity, from the innocent air and tranquillity of our foreft, when you do me the favour to vifit it. In the mean time, it would do well, by way of preparative, if you would duly

and conftantly every morning read over a paftoral of Theocritus or Virgil; and let the lady Ifabella put your Macrobius and Aulus Gellius fomewhere out of your way, for a month or fo. Who knows, but travelling and long airing in an open field, may contribute more fuccessfully to the cooling a critic's feverity, than it did to the affuaging of Mr. Cheek's anger of old? In thefe fields you will be fecure of finding no enemy, but the most faithful and affectionate of your friends, &c.

From the fame to the fame.
May 17, 1710.
FTER I had recovered from a danger-

A
ous illnefs which was first contracted
in town about a fortnight after my com-
ing hither, I troubled you with a letter,
and paper inclofed, which you had been
fo obliging as to defire a fight of when
laft faw you, promising me in return fome
tranflations of yours from Ovid. Since
when, I have not had a fyllable from
your hands, fo that it is to be feared,
that though I have escaped death, I have
not oblivion. I fhould at least have ex-
pected you to have finished that elegy up-
on me, which you told me you was upon
the point of beginning when I was fick
in London; if you will but do fo much for
me firit, I will give you leave to forget
me afterwards; and for my own part will
die at difcretion, and at my leifure. But
I fear I must be forced, like many learn-
ed authors, to write my own epitaph, if
I would be remembered at all. Monfieur
de la Fontaine's would fit me to a hair;
but it is a kind of facrilege (do you think
it is not?) to feal epitaphs. In my pre-
fent, living dead condition, nothing
would be properer than Oblitufque metrum,
oblivifcendus et illis, but that unluckily I
cannot forget my friends, and the civili-
ties I received from yourfelf and fome
others. They fay indeed it is one qua-
lity of generous minds to forget the ob-
ligations they have conferred, and perhaps
too it may be fo to forget thofe on whom
they conferred them: then indeed I muft
be forgotten to all intents and purpofes;

Rochefter's poem on Nothing; done at fourteen

* Verfes on Silence, in imitation of the Earl of years old.

Sect. I,

I am, it must be owned, dead in a natural capacity, according to Mr. Bickerftaff; dead in a poetical capacity, as a damned author; and dead in a civil capacity, as a ufelefs member of the commonwealth. But reflect, dear fir, what melancholy effects may enfue, if dead men are not civil to one another! if he who has nothing to do himself, will not comfort and fupport another in his idleness; if thole who are to die themfelves, will not now and then pay the charity of vifiting a tomb and a dead friend, and ftrowing a few flowers over him: in the hades where I am, the inhabitants have a mutual compaffion for each other; being all alike Inanes; we faunter to one and daily affift another's habitations, each other in doing nothing at all. This I mention for your edification and example, that, all alive as you are, you may not fometimes difdain- defipere in loco, Though you are no Papift, and have not fo much regard to the dead as to addrels yourself to them (which I plainly perceive by your filence), yet I hope you are not one of thofe heterodox, who hold them to be totally infenfible of the good offices and kind wishes of their living friends, and to be in a dull state of fleep, without one dream of those they left behind them. If you are, let this letter convince you to the contrary, which affures you I am ftill, though in a state of feparation, yours, &c.

P. S. This letter of deaths puts me in mind of poor Mr. Betterton's; over whom I would have this fentence of Tully for an epitaph, which will ferve him as сараwell in his moral, as his theatrical city: Vita bene alla jucundiffima eft recordatio.

IT is very natural for a young friend, and a young lover, to think the perfons they love have nothing to do but to please them; when perhaps they, for their parts, had twenty other engage This was my cafe, when ments before. I wondered I did not hear from you; but I no fooner received your fhort letter, but I forgot your long filence: and fo many fine things as you faid of me could not

but have wrought a cure on my own fick-
nefs, if it had not been of the nature of
that which is deaf to the voice of the
charmer. It was impoffible you could
have better timed your compliment on
my philofophy; it was certainly propereft
to commend me for it juft when I molt
needed it, and when I could leaft be proud
of it; that is, when I was in pain. It is not
eafy to express what an exaltation it gave
to my fpirits, above all the cordials of
my doctor; and it is no compliment to
tell you, that your compliments were
fweeter than the fweeteft of his juleps and
fyrups. But if you will not believe fo
much,

Pour le moins, votre compliment
M'a foulagé dans ce moment;
Et dès qu'on me l'eft venu faire
J'ai chaffé mon apoticaire,
Et renvoyé mon lavement.

For death has of

Nevertheless, I would not have you entirely lay afide the thoughts of my epitaph, any more than I do thofe of the probability of my becoming (ere long) the fubject of one. late been very familiar with fome of my fize; I am told, my Lord Lumley and Mr. Litton are gone before me; and though I may now, without vanity, efteem myfelf the least thing like a man in England, yet I cannot but be sorry, two heroes of fuch a make fhould die inglorious in their beds; when it had been a fate more worthy our fize, had they met with theirs from an irruption of cranes, or other warlike animals, thofe ancient enemies to our pygmæan ancestors! You of a fuperior fpecies little regard what befals us homunciones fefquipedales; however, you have no reason to be so unconcerned, fince all phyficians agree there is no greater fign of a plague among men, than a mortality among frogs.

This fort of writing called a Rondeau is what I never knew practifed in our na→ tion, and, I verily believe, it was not in ufe with the Greeks or Romans, neither

Macrobius nor Hyginus taking the leaft notice of it. It is to be observed, that the vulgar fpelling and pronouncing it round Ŏ, is a manifeft corruption, and by no means to be allowed of by critics. Some may mistakenly imagine that it was a fort of rondeau which the Gallic foldiers fung in Cæfar's triumph over Gaul

Gallies Cæfar fubegit, &c. as it is recorded by Suetonius in Julio, and fo de

13

rive

te verfion you
g. It is very
hor's writing,
that charms us
a mistress, whofe
Saer with them all.
adly altered his
es, and I can find
..e inft upon as an
written in the mar-
a little im-
geiles at
than criticisms.
es expect you fhould
rivate notions but when
Dem agrecable to reafon

I

What I have done is at as a friend: I know nany qualities are requifite re, and that I want almoft son up; but I am fure I do

ation, nor, I hope, capae other. Nor fhall I take is that another diffents from it is no more than I have

from my own; and indeed, an advances in understandones the more every day a Simfelf, and finds fomething to blame in his former d opinions. I could be glad to

As to the paffage of which you afk my pinion in the fecond Eneid, it is either to plain as to require no folution; or elfe which is very probable) you fee farther into it than I can. Priam would fay, that Achilles (whom furely you only

feign to be your father, fince your "actions are fo different from his) did

not ufe me thus inhumanly. He blush"ed at his murder of Hector, when he "faw my forrows for him; and restored "his dead body to me to be buried." To this the anfwer of Pyrrhus feems to be agreeable enough, "Go then to the

fhades, and tell Achilles how I dege"nerate from him :" granting the truth of what Priam had faid of the difference between them. Indeed Mr. Dryden's mentioning here what Virgil more judicioufly paffes in filence, the circumstance of Achilles's felling for money the body of Hector, feems not fo proper; it i fome meafure leffening the character of Achilles's generofity and piety, which is the very point of which Priam endeavours in this place to convince his fon, and to reproach him with the want of. But the truth of this circumftance is no way to be queftioned, being exprefsly taken from Homer, who reprefents Achiles weeping for Priam, yet receiving the gold, Iliad xxiv. for when he gives the body, he uses these words: “ O my "friend Patroclus; forgive me that! quit the corpfe of him who killed thee; I have great gifts in ranfom for it, which I will bestow upon thy func "ral." I am, &c.

From the fame to the fame.

August 21, 1-10. YOUR OUR letters are a perfect charity to a man in retirement, utterly forgot ten of all his friends but you; for fince Mr. Wycherley left London, I have rot heard a word from him; though juft be fore, and once fince, I writ to him, and though I know myfelf guilty of no ot fence but of doing fincerely just what he

bid

459

perfections and foolish works, to the difparagement of the little wit they were thought mafters of. I am going to ex emplify this to you, in putting into your hands (being encouraged by fo much indulgence) fome verfes of my youth, or rather childhood; which (as I was a great admirer of Waller) were intended in imitation of his manner; and are, perhaps, fuch imitations, as those you fee in awkward country dames, of the fine and well-bred ladies of the court. If you will take them with you into Lincolnfhire, they may fave you one hour from the converfation of the country gentlemen and their tenants (who differ but in drefs and name), which, if it be there as bad as here, is even worse than my poetry. I hope your ftay there will be no longer than (as Mr. Wycherley calls it) to rob the country, and run away to London with your money. In the mean time, I beg the favour of a line from you, and am (as I will never cease to be) your, &c.

-ilac mihi libertas, hoc pia lingua -But the greateft injury he does e keeping me in ignorance of Fare, which I am always very us for, and very uneafy in the fear indifpofition that may befal him. at I fent you fome time ago, you e not verfe enough to be fevere upon, revenge for my laft criticism: in one int I muft perfift, that is to fay, my Mike of your Paradife, in which I take 10 pleafure; I know very well that in Greek it is not only used by Xenophon, but is a common word for any garden; but in English it bears the fignification and conveys the idea of Eden, which alone is (I think) a reason against making Ovid ufe it; who will be thought to talk too much like a Chriftian in your verfion at least, whatever it might have been in Latin or Greek. As for all the reft of my remarks, fince you do not laugh at them as at this, I can be fo civil as not to lay any stress upon them (as, I think, I told you before); and in particular in the point of trees enjoying, you have, I muft own, fully fatisfied me that the expreffion is not only defenfible, but beautiful. I fhall be very glad to fee your tranflation of the elegy, Ad amicam navigantem, as foon as you can; for (without a compliment to you) every thing you write, either in verfe or profe, is welcome to me; and you may be confident (if my opinion can be of any fort of confequence in any thing), that I will never be unfincere, though I may be often miftaken. To ufe fincerity with you, is but paying you in your own coin, from whom I have experienced fo much of it; and I need not tell you, how much I really esteem you, when I efteem nothing in the world fo much as that quality. I know, you fometimes fay civil things to me in your epiftolary ftyle, but thofe I am to make allowance for, as particularly when you talk of admiring; it is a word you are fo used to in converfation of ladies, that it will creep into your difcourfe, in fpite of you, even to your friends. But as women, when they think themselves fecure of admiration, commit a thousand negligences, which thow them fo much at difadvantage and off their guard, as to lofe the little real love they had before: fo when men imagine others entertain fome efteem for their abilities, they often expofe all their im

Oct. 12, 1710.

I the advice I received, that you were leaving the town for fome time, and expected your return with impatience, having then a defign of feeing my friends there, among the first of which I have reafon to account yourself. But my almoft continual illneffes prevent that, as well as most other fatisfactions of my life: however, I may fay one good thing of fickness, that it is the best cure in nature for ambition, and designs upon the world or fortune: it makes a man pretty indifferent for the future, provided he can but be eafy, by intervals, for the prefent. He will be content to compound for his quiet only, and leave all the circumftantial part and pomp of life to those who have a health vigorous enough to enjoy all the miftreffes of their defires. I thank God, there is nothing out of myfelf which I would be at the trouble of feeking, except a friend; a happiness I once hoped to have poffeffed in Mr. Wycherley; but-Quantum mutatus ab illo!-I have for fome years been employed much like children that

DEFERRED answering your laft, upon

build