Homer. I am, &c.

γου

LETTER CXII.

Mr. Pope to Mr. Digby.

May 1, 1720.

will think me very full of myfelf, when after long filence (which however, to fay truth, has rather been employed to contemplate of you, than to forget you) I begin to talk of my own works. I find it is in the finishing a book, as in concluding a feffion of parliament, one always thinks it will be very foon, and finds it very late. There are many unlooked for incidents to retard the clearing any public account, and fo I fee it is in mine. I have plagued myself, like great minifters, with undertaking too much for one man; and, with a defire of doing more than was expected from me, have done lefs than I ought.

For having defigned four very laborious and uncommon fort of indexes to Homer, I am forced, for want of time, to publish two only; the defign of which you will own to be pretty, though far from being fully executed. I have alfo been obliged to leave unfinished in my defk the heads of two Eflays, one on the Theology and Morality of Homer, and another on the Oratory of Homer and Virgil. So they must wait for future editions, or perish: and (one way or other, no great matter which) dabit Deus his quoque finem. I think of you every day, I affure you, even without fuch good memorials of you as your fifters, with whom I fometimes talk of you, and find it one of the most agreeable of all fubjects to them. My Lord Digby must be perpetually remembered by all who ever knew him, or knew his children. There needs no more than an acquaintance with your family, to make all elder fons with they had fathers to their lives end.

I cannot touch upon the fubject of filial love, without putting you in mind of an old woman, who has a fincere, hearty, old-fashioned refpect for you, and conftantly blames her fon for not having writ to you oftner to tell you fo. I very much with (but what fignifies my wishing my Lady Scudamore wishes, your filters with) that you were with us, to compare the beautiful contraft this

country. No ideas you could form in the winter can make you imagine what Twickenham is (and what your friend Mr. Johnson of Twickenham is) in this warmer feafon. Our river glitters be neath an unclouded fun, at the fame time that its banks retain the verdure of fhowers: our gardens are offering their first nofegays; our trees, like new ac quaintance brought happily together, are ftretching their arms to meet each other, and growing nearer and nearer every hour; the birds are paying their thanksgiving fongs for the new habitations I have made them; my building rifes high enough to attract the eye and curiosity of the paffenger from the river, where, upon beholding a mixture of beauty and ruin, he enquires what houfe is falling, or what church is rifing? So little tafte have our common Tritons of Vitruvius; whatever delight the poetical gods of the river may take, in reflecting on their ftreams, by Tufcan porticos or Ionic pilafters.

But (to defcend from all this pomp of ftyle) the beft account of what I am building is, that it will afford me a few pleafant rooms for fuch a friend as yourfelf, or a cool fituation for an hour or two for Lady Scudamore, when she will do me the honour (at this public house on the road) to drink her own cyder.

The moment I am writing this, I am furprifed with the account of the death of a friend of mine; which makes all I have here been talking of, a mere jeft! building, gardens, writings, pleafures, works of whatever ftuff man can raife! none of them (God knows) capable of advantaging a creature that is mortal, or of fatisfying a foul that is immortal! Dear Sir, I am, &c.

R

I

On flow'rs repos'd, and with fresh garlands crown'd, Quaff immortality and joy.

When I fpeak of garlands, I fhould not forget the green veitments and scarfs which your filters promised to make for this purpofe: I expect you too in green, with a hunting-horn by your fide, and a green hat, the model of which you may take from Ofborne's defcription of King James the Firft.

What words, what numbers, what oratory, or what poetry can fuffice, to exprefs how infinitely I efteem, value, love, and defire you all, above all the great ones of this part of the world; above all the Jews, jobbers, bubblers, fubfcribers, projectors, directors, governors, treasurers, &c. &c. &c. in fecula jaculerum.

Turn your eyes and attention from this miferable mercenary period; and turn yourfelf, in a juft contempt of thefe fons of Mammon, to the contemplation of books, gardens, and marriage: in which I now leave you, and return (wretch that I am!) to water-gruel and Palladio. I

am, &c.

LETTER CXVI.

Mr. Digby to Mr. Pope.

Sherburne, July 30. CONGRATULATE you, dear Sir, on the return of the golden-age, for fure this must be fuch, in which money is fhowered down in fuch abundance upon us. I hope this overflowing will produce great and good fruits, and bring back the figurative moral golden-age to us. I have fome omens to induce me to believe it may; for when the mufes delight to be near a court, when I find you frequently with a first minifter, I cannot but expect from fuch an intimacy an encouragement and revival of the polite arts. I know you defire to bring them into honour, above the golden image which is fet up and worshipped; and, if you cannot effect it, adieu to all fuch hopes. You feem to intimate in yours another face of things from this inundation of wealth, as if beauty, wit, and valour, would no more engage our paffions in the pleasurable purfuit of them, though affifted by this increase: if fo, and if mon fters only, as various as thofe of Nile, arife from this abundance, who, that has

any fpleen about him, will not hafte to town to laugh? What will become of the play-houfe? who will go thither, while there is fuch entertainment in the streets? I hope we fhall neither want good fatire nor comedy; if we do, the age may well be thought barren of geniuses, for none has ever produced better fubjects. Your, &c.

LETTER CXVII.
From the fame to the fame.

Coleshill, Nov. 12, 1720.
FIND in my heart that I have a taint

I of the corrupt age we live in. I want the public fpirit fo much admired in old, Rome, of facrificing every thing that is dear to us to the commonwealth. I even feel a more intimate concern for my friends who have fuffered in the South Sea, than for the public, which is faid to be undone by it. But I hope the reafon is, that I do not fee fo evidently the ruin of the public to be a confequence of it, as I do the lofs of my friends. I fear there are few befides yourself that will be perfuaded by old Hefiod, that half is more than the whole. I know not whether I do not rejoice in your fufferings; fince they have fhewn me your mind is principled with fuch a fentiment, I affun you I expect from it a performance greater fill than Homer. I have an extreme joy from your communicating to me this affection of your mind;

Quid voveat dulci Nutricula majus alumno ? Believe me, dear Sir, no equipage could fhew you to my eye in fo much fplendour. I would not indulge this fit of philofophy fo far as to be tedious to you, elfe I could profecute it with pleasure.

I long to fee you, your mother, angk your villa; till then I will fay nothing of Lord Bathurst's wood, which I faw in my return hither. Soon after Christmas I defign for London, where I fhall mits Lady Scudamore very much, who intends to ftay in the country all winter. I am angry with her, as I am like to fuffer by this refolution, and would fain bla her, but cannot find a cause. The man is curfed that has a longer letter than this to write with as bad a pen, yet I can ui? it with pleasure to fend my fervices to your good mother, and to write myfit your, &c.

γου

LETTER CXX. From the fame to the fame.

1722.

OUR making a fort of apology for your not writing, is a very genteel reproof to me. I know I was to blame, but I know I did not intend to be fo, and (what is the happiest knowledge in the world) I know you will forgive me for fure nothing is more fatisfactory than to be certain of fuch a friend as will overlook one's failings, fince every fuch inftance is a conviction of his kindness.

If I am all my life to dwell in intentions, and never to rife to actions, I have but too much need of that gentle difpofition which I experience in you. But I hope better things of myself, and fully purpose to make you a vifit this fummer at Sherburne. I am told you are all upon removal very fpeedily, and that Mrs. Mary Digby talks, in a letter to Lady Scudamore, of feeing my Lord Bathurst's wood in her way. How much I wish to be her guide through that enchanted foreft, is not to be expreft: I look upon myfelf as the magician appropriated to the place, without whom no mortal can penetrate into the receffes of thofe facred shades. I could pafs whole days in only defcribing to her the future, and as yet vifionary beauties, that are to rife in thofe fcenes: the palace that is to be built, the pavilions that are to glitter, the colonades that are to adorn them: nay more, the meeting of the Thames and the Severn, which (when the noble owner has finer dreams than ordinary) are to be led into each other's embraces through fecret caverns of not above twelve or fifteen miles, till they rife and celebrate their marriage in the midit of an immenfe amphitheatre, which is to be the admiration of pofterity a hundred years hence. But till the defined time hall arrive that is to manifeft thefe wonders, Mrs. Digby muft content herfelf with feeing what is at prefent no more than the finest wood in England.

The objects that attract this part of the world, are of a quite different nature. Women of quality are all turned followers of the camp in Hyde-park this year, whither all the town refort to magnificent entertainments given by the offiCETS, &c. The Scythian ladies that

dwelt in the waggons of war, were not more closely attached to the luggage. The matrons, like thofe of Sparta, attend their fons to the field, to be witneffes of their glorious deeds; and the maidens, with all their charms difplayed, provoke the fpirit of the foldiers: tea and coffee fupply the place of Lacede monian black broth. This camp feems crowned with perpetual victory, for every fun that rifes in the thunder of cannon, fets in the mufic of violins. No

thing is yet wanting but the conftant prefence of the princefs, to reprefent the

mater exercitus.

At Twickenham the world goes otherwife. There are certain old people who take up all my time, and will hardly allow me to keep any other company. They were introduced here by a man of their own fort, who has made me perfectly rude to all contemporaries, and will not fo much as fuffer me to look upon them. The perfon I complain of is the bishop of Rochefter. Yet he allows me (from fomething he has heard of your character, and that of your family, ifts) to write three or four fides of paper as if you were of the old fect of moralto you, and to tell you (what these fort of people never tell but with truth and religious fincerity) that I am, and ever will be your, &c.

THE

From the fame to the fame. HE fame reason that hindered your writing, hindered mine; the pleafing expectation to see you in town. Indeed, fince the willing confinement I have lain under here with my mother (whom it is natural and reafonable I fhould rejoice with as well as grieve), I could the better bear your abfence from London, for I could hardly have feen you there; and it would not have been quite reasonable to have drawn you to a fick room hither from the first embraces of your friends. My mother is now (I thank God) wonderfully recovered, though not fo much as yet to venture out of her chamber, but enough to enjoy a few particular friends, when they have the good nature to look upon her. I may recommend to you the room we fit in, upon one (and that a favourite) account, that it is the