LETTER XXX.

Mr. CONGREVE to Mr. POP E.

May 6. Have the pleasure of your very kind letter. I have always been obliged to you for your friendfhip and concern for me, and am more affected with it, than I will take upon me to exprefs in this letter. I do affure you there is no return wanting on my part, and am very forry I had not the good luck to fee the Dean before I left the town: it is a great pleasure to me, and not a little vanity to think that. he miffes me. As to my health, which you are so kind to enquire after, it is not worse than in London: I am almost afraid yet to say that it is better, for I cannot reasonably expect much effect from these waters in so short a time; but in the main they seem to agree with me. Here is not one creature that I know, which, next to the few I would chufe, contributes very much to my fatisfaction. At the fame time that I regret the want of your conversation, I please myself with thinking that you are where you firft ought to be, and engaged where you cannot do too much. Pray, give my humble fervice, and best wishes to your good mother. I am forry you don't tell me how Mr. Gay does in his health; I should have been glad to have heard he was better. My young Amanuenfis, as you call him, I am afraid, will prove but a wooden one: and you know ex quovis ligno, &c. You will pardon Mrs. R's pedantry, and believe me to be Your, &c.

P. S. By the inclofed you will fee I am like to be imprefs'd, and enroll'd in the lift of Mr. Curll's Authors; but, I thank God! I fhall have your company. I believe it high time you should think of adminiftring another Emetic.

VOL. VII.

LET

LETTERS

TO AND FROM

SEVERAL PERSONS.

From 1714, to 1721.

LETTER I.

The Rev. Dean BERKLEY to Mr. POPE.

A

Leghorn, May 1, 1714.

I

S I take ingratitude to be a greater crime than impertinence, I chufe rather to run the rifque of being thought guilty of the latter, than not to return you my thanks for a very agreeable entertainment you just now gave me. have accidentally met with your Rape of the Lock here, having never feen it before. Style, painting, judgment, fpirit, I had already admired in other of your writings; but in this I am charm'd with the magic of your invention, with all thofe images, allufions, and inexplicable beauties, which you raise fo furprisingly, and at the fame time fo naturally, out of a trifle. And yet I cannot fay that I was more pleas'd with the reading of it, than I am with the pretext it gives me to renew in your thoughts, the remembrance of one who values no happiness beyond the friendship of men of wit, learning, and good-nature.

I remember to have heard you mention some halfform'd defign of coming to Italy. What might we not expect from a Mufe that fings fo well in the bleak climate of England, if she felt the same warm fun, and breathed the fame air with Virgil and Horace ?

There are here an incredible number of Poets, that have all the inclination, but want the genius, or perhaps the art, of the Ancients. Some among them, who understand English, begin to relish our Authors; and I am informed, that at Florence they have tranflated Milton into Italian verfe. If one who knows fo well how to write like the old Latin poets, came among them; it would probably be a means to retrieve them from their cold, trivial conceits, to an imitation of their predeceffors.

As merchants, antiquaries, men of pleasure, &c. have all different views in travelling; I know not whether it might not be worth a Poet's while, to travel, in order to store his mind with ftrong images of Nature.

Green fields and groves, flowery meadows and purling freams are no where in such perfection as in England: but if you would know lightfome days, warm funs, and blue skies, you must come to Italy: and to enable a man to describe rocks and precipices, it is abfolutely neceffary that he pass the Alps.

You will eafi'y perceive that it is felf-interest makes me fo fond of giving advice to one who has no need of it. If you came into thefe parts I should fly to fee you. I am here (by the favour of my good friend the Dean of St Patrick's) in quality of Chaplain to the Earl of Peterborough; who about three months. fince left the greatest part of his family in this town. God knows how long we shall stay here,

I am

LETTER II.

Mr. POPE to Mr. JER VAS in Ireland.

THO

July 9, 1716.

HO', as you rightly remark, I pay my tax but once in half a year, yet you fhall fee by this letter upon the neck of the neck of my laft, that I pay a double tax, as we non-jurors ought to do. Your acquaintance on this fide of the fea are under terrible apprehenfions from your long stay in Ireland, that you may grow too polite for them; for we think (fince the great fuccefs of fuch a play as the Non-juror) that politeness is gone over the water. But others are of opinion it has been longer among you, and was introduced much about the fame time with Frogs, and with equal fuccefs. Poor Poetry! the little that is left of it here longs to crofs the feas, and leave Eufden in full and peaceable poffeffion of the British laurel and we begin to wish you had the finging of our poets, as well as the croaking of our frogs, to yourselves, in fæcula fæculorum. It would be well in exchange, if Parnelle, and two or three more of your Swans would come hither, especially that Swan, who, like a true modern one, does not fing at all, Dr. Swift. I am (like the reft of the world) a fufferer by his idlenefs. Indeed I hate that any man fhould be idle, while I must tranflate and comment; and I may the more fincerely wifh for good poetry from others because I am become a perfon out of the question; for a Tranflator is no more a poet, than a Taylor is a man.

You are, doubtless, perfuaded of the validity of that famous verse,

'Tis Expectation makes a Blessing dear :

but

but why would you make your friends fonder of you than they are? There is no manner of need of it. We begin to expect you no more than Anti-chrift; a man that hath absented himself so long from his friends, ought to be put into the Gazette.

Every body here has great need of you. Many faces have died for want of your pencil, and blooming Ladies have wither'd in expecting your return. Even Frank and Betty (that conftant pair) cannot confole themselves for your abfence; I fancy they will be forced to make their own picture in a pretty babe, before you come home: 'twill be a noble subject for a family piece. Come then, and having peopled Ireland with a world of beautiful shadows, come to us, and fee with that eye (which, like the eye of the world, creates beauties by looking on them) fee, I fay, how England has alter'd the airs of all its heads in your absence: and with what fneaking city attitudes our most celebrated perfonages appear, in the mere mortal works of our painters.

Mr. Fortefcue is much yours; Gay commemorates you; and laftly (to climb by just steps and degrees) my Lord Burlington defires you may be put in mind of him. His gardens flourish, his ftructures rife, his pictures arrive, and (what is far more valuable than all) his own good qualities daily extend themselves to all about him: of whom I the meaneft (next, to fome Italian Fidlers, and English Bricklayers) am a living instance. Adieu.