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Mr. Pope to Edw. Blount, Efq.

Rentcomb in Gloucestershire, Oct. 3, 1721. kind letter has overtaken me YOUR here, for I have been in and about this country ever fince your departure. I am well pleafed to date this from a place fo well known to Mrs. Blount, where I write as if I were dictated to by her ancestors, whofe faces are all upon me. I fear none fo much as Sir Chriftopher Guife, who, being in his thirt, feems as ready to combat me, as her own Sir John was to demolith Duke Lancaftere. I dare fay your lady will recollect his figure. I looked upon the manfion, walls, and terraces; the plantations, and flopes, which nature has made to command a variety of valleys and rif ing woods; with a veneration mixed with a pleafure, that reprefented her to me in thofe puerile amufements, which engaged her fo many years ago in this place. I fancied I faw her fober over a fampler, or gay over a jointed baby. I dare fay he did one thing more, even in thofe early times; "remembered her "Creator in the days of her youth."

that

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You describe fo well your hermitical ftate of life, that none of the ancient anchorites could go beyond you, for a cave in a rock, with a fine fpring, or any of the accommodations that befit a folitary. Only I do not remember to have read, of thofe venerable and holy perfonages took with them a lady, and begat fons and daughters. You must modeftly be content to be accounted a patriarch. But were you a little younger, I fhould rather rank you with Sir Amadis, and his fellows. If piety be fo romantic, I fhall turn hermit in good earneft; for, I fee, one may go fo far as to be poctical, and hope to fave one's

foul at the fame time. I really wish myfelf fomething more, that is, a prophet; for I wish I were, as Habakkuk, to be taken by the hair of his head, and vift Daniel in his den. You are very oblig ing in faying, I have now a whole family upon my hands to whom to discharge the part of a friend; I affure you, I like them all fo well, that I will never quit my hereditary right to them; you have made me yours, and confequently them mine. I ftill fee them walking on my green at Twickenham, and gratefully remember, not only their green gowns, but the inftructions they gave me how to flide down and trip up the fteepeft flopes of my

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YOUR very kind and obliging manner

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of inquiring after me, among the first concerns of life, at your refufcitation, fhould have been fooner anfwered and ac knowledged. I fincerely rejoice at your recovery from an illness which gave lefs pain than it did you, only from v ignorance of it. I fhould have elfe beta feriously and deeply afflicted, in t thought of your danger by a fever. I think it a fine and a natural thought,!

which I lately read in a letter of Mor

taigne's published by P. Cofte, giving! an account of the last words of an inti mate friend of his: "Adieu, my friend! "the pain I feel will foon be over;

" I

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grieve for that you are to feel, which "is to laft you for life.”

I join with your family in giving God thanks for lending us a worthy maniome what longer. The comforts you receive from their attendance, put me in mind of what old Fletcher of Saltoune faid oot day to me: "Alas, I have nothing to "do but to die: I am a poor individual;

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no creature to with or to fear for my "life or death: it is the only reator I "have to repent being a fingle man; now I grow old, I am like a tree with"out a prop, and without young tree to grow round me, for company and "defence."

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ours, I affure you, the promiscuous conerfations of the town ferve only to put me in mind of better, and more quiet, to be had in a corner of the world (unturbed, innocent, ferone, and sensible) with fuch as you. Let no access of any diftruft make you think of me differently in a cloudy day from what you do in the moft funshiny weather. Let the young dies be aflured I make nothing new in my gardens without wifhing to fee the rint of their fairy feps in every part of them. I have put the laft hand to my works of this kind, in happily finishing the fubterraneous way and grotto: I there found a fpring of the cleareft water, which falls in a perpetual rill, that choes through the cavern day and night. rom the river Thames, you fee through y arch up a walk of the wilderness, to a ind of open temple, wholly compofed of fhells in the ruftic manner; and from that diftance, under the temple you look down through a floping arcade of trees, and fee the fails on the river paffing fuddenly and vanithing, as through a perfective glafs. When you fhut the doors of this grotto it becomes on the inftant, From a luminous room, a camera obfcura; on the walls of which all the objects of The river, hills, woods, and boats, are Forming a moving picture in their vifible radiations: and when you have a mind to Hght it up, it affords you a very different fcene; it is finished with fhells interfperfed with pieces of looking-glafs in angular forms; and in the ceiling is a Bar of the fame material, at which, when lamp (or an orbicular figure of thin alaafter) is hung in the middle, a thouund pointed rays glitter, and are reflected over the place. There are connected to this grotto by a narrower paffage two porches; one towards the river, of fmooth flones full of light, and open; the other toward the garden, thadowed with trees, rough with thelis, fints, and iron ore. The bottom is paved with fimple pebble, as is alfo the adjoining walk up the wilderness to the temple, in the natural tile, agreeing not ill with the little dripping murmur, and the aquatic idea of the whole place. It wants nothing to complete it but a good ftatue with an infcription, like that beautiful antique one which you know I am fo fond of,

Hujus Nympha lici, fueri cafudia funtis;
Dermik, dum Llando jutio murmur aqua.

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Rumpere; fi bibas, five lavere, tau.

Nymph of the grot, thefe facred fprings I keep
And to the murmur of thefe waters fleep;
Ah fpare my flumbers, gently tread the cave!
And drink in filence, or in filence lave!

You will think I have been very poe tical in this defcription, but it is pretty near the truth. I wish you were here to bear teftimony how little it owes to art, either the place itself, or the image I give of it. I am, &c.

CVIII.

LETTER Mr. Pope to Edav. Blount, Efq. Sept. 13, 1728. SHOULD be afhamed to own the re ceipt of a very kind letter from you two whole months from the date of this if I were not more afhamed to tell a or to make an excufe, which is wat than a lie (for being built upon fome pr bable circumflance, it makes ufe of ad gree of truth to falfify with, and is a guarded). Your letter has been in t pocket in conftant wearing, till that, # the pocket, and the fuit, are worn by which means I have read it f times, and I find by fo doing that I not enough confidered and reflected u many others you have obliged me w for true friendship, as they fay of g writing, will bear reviewing a thou times, and fill difcover new beautie

I have had a fever, a fhort one, a violent: I am now well, fo it thall up no more of this paper.

I begin now to expe& you in tow make the winter to come more tole to us both. The fummer is a ki heaven, when we wander in a parac cal fcene among groves and gardens at this feafon, we are, like our poor parents, turned out of that agre though folitary life, and forced to about for more people to help to our labours, to get into warmer he and live together in cities.

I hope you are long fince perfectl ftored, and rifen from your gout, i in the delights of a contented fa fmiling at forms, laughing at grea merry over a Christmas fire, and cifing all the functions of an old pat: in charity and hospitality. I wi

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LETTER CX.
Mr. Pope to the Hon. Robert Digby.
London, March 31, 1718.

TO convince you how little pain I give
myfelf in correfponding with men of
good nature and good understanding, you
fee I omit to answer your letters till a
time when another man would be afham-
ed to own he had received them. If
therefore you are ever moved on my ac-
count by that fpirit, which I take to be
as familiar to you as a quotidian ague,
I mean the fpirit of goodnefs, pray never
flint it, in any fear of obliging me to a
civility beyond my natural inclination. I
dare truft vou, Sir, not only with my

folly when I write, but with my negligence when I do not; and expect equally your pardon for either.

:

If I knew how to entertain you through the reft of this paper, it fhould be spotted and diverfified with conceits all over; you fhould be put out of breath with laughter at each fentence, and paufe at each period, to look back over how much wit you have paffed. But I have found by experience, that people now-adays regard writing as little as they do preaching the mott we can hope is to be heard juft with decency and patience, once a week, by folks in the country. Here in town we hum over a piece of fine writing, and we whistle at a fermon. The ftage is the only place we feem alive at; there indeed we ftare, and roar, and clap hands for King George and the goAs for all other virtues but this loyalty, they are an obfolete train, fo ill drefled, that men, women, and children hifs them out of all good company. Humility knocks fo fheakingly at the door, that every footman outraps it, and makes it give way to the free entrance of pride, prodigality, and vain glory.

vernment.

My Lady Scudamore, from having rufticated in your company too long, really behaves herself fcandaloufly among us: The pretends to open her eyes for the fake of feeing the fun, and to fleep because it is night; drinks tea at nine in the morning, and is thought to have faid her prayers before: talks, without any manner of fhame, of good books, and has not feen Cibber's play of the Nonjuror. I rejoiced the other day to fee a libel on

her toilette, which gives me fome hope that you have, at leaft, a taste of scandal left you, in defect of all other vices.

Upon the whole matter, I heartily with you well; but as I cannot entirely defire the ruin of all the joys of this city, fo all that remains is to with you would keep your happinefs to yourfelves, that the happie here may not die with envy at a blits which they cannot attain to. I am, &c.

LETTER CXI.
Mr. Digly to Mr. Pope.

Coleshill, April 17, 1718.
HAVE read your letter over and over

with delight. By your defeription of the town, I imagine it to lie under fone great enchantment, and am very much concerned for you and all my friends in it. I am the more afraid, imaglalag, fince you do not fly thofe horrible manflers rapine, diffimulation, and luxury, that a magic circle is drawn about you, and you cannot efcape. We are here in the country in quite another world, furrounded with bleflings and pleasures, without any occafion of exercifing ou irafcible faculties; indeed we cannot boat of good breeding and the art of life, but yet we do not live anpleasanty in primitive fimplicity and good humour. The fathions of the town affect us but jat like a raree-fhow; we have a curiofity to peep at them, and nothing more. Wha you call pride, prodigality, and vas glory, we cannot find in fpendour at this diftance; it appears us a fine glittering fcene, which if we do not envy you, we think you happie: than we are, in your enjoying it. Wh ever you may think to perfuade us of the humility of virtue, and her appear ing in rags among it you, we can never believe our uninformed minds reprefers her fo noble to us, that we neceffariy annex fplendour to he:: and we could as foon imagine th order of things invert ed, and that there is no man in the incon, as believe the contrary. I cannot forbear telling you, we indeed read the Spoils of Rapine as boys do the English Rogue, and hug ourfelves full as much over it i yet our rofes are not without thorns. Pray give me the pleasure of hearing (when you are at leifure) how foon

pomp

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