received any thing of any man for my

verses.-The same.

The things that I have written fastest have always pleased most. I wrote the Essay on Criticism fast, for I had digested all the matter in prose before I began upon it in verse. The Rape of the Lock was written fast: all the machinery, you know, was added afterwards; and the making that, and what was published before, hit so well together, is, I think, one of the greatest proofs of judgment, of any thing I ever did. I wrote most of the Iliad fast, a great deal of it on journeys, from the little pocket Homer on that shelf there; and often forty or fifty verses on a morning in bed. The same.

The Dunciad cost me as much pains as any thing I ever wrote.-The same.

In the Moral Poem I had written an address to our Saviour, imitated from Lucretius's compliment to Epicurus; but omitted it by the advice of Dean Berkley. One of our priests, who are more narrow than yours, made a less sensible objection to the

Epistle on Happiness: he was very angry that there was nothing said in it of our eternal happiness hereafter; though my subject was expressly to treat only of the state of man here.-The same.

The four first Epistles are the scale for all the rest of the work, and were much the most difficult part of it. I do not know whether I shall go on with the Epistles on Government or that on Education.-The same. [He spoke a little warmer as to the use of it; but more coldly as to the execution.]

I have omitted a character (though I thought it one of the best I had ever written) of a very great man, who had every thing from without to make him happy, and yet was very miserable, from the want of virtue in his own heart.The same. [It seems to have been that of the Duke of Marlborough. He did not say who; but mentioned Julius Cæsar, and the late King of Sardinia, as instances of a like kind.]

Lord Bolingbroke will be more known to

posterity as a writer and philosopher, than as a statesman. He has several things that he will scarce publish, and a good deal that he will.—The same. [He at the same time spoke very highly of his Dissertation on the English History, and that on Parties, and called him absolutely "the best writer of the age." He mentioned then, and at several other times, how much, or rather how wholly he himself was obliged to him for the thoughts and reasonings in his Moral Work; and once in particular said, that beside their frequent talking over that subject together, he had received, I think, seven or eight sheets from Lord Bolingbroke, in relation to it (as I apprehend, by way of letters) both to direct the plan in general, and to apply the matter for the particular epistles.]

I wrote the law case of the black and white horses with the help of a lawyer: [and by what he added it seemed to be the late Master of the Rolls, Fortescue.] Dr. Arbuthnot was the sole writer of John Bull, and so was Gay of the Beggar's

Opera. I own appearances are against the latter, for it was written in the same house with me and Dr. Swift. He used to communicate the parts of it as he wrote them to us; but neither of us did any more than alter an expression here and there.-The

same.

Lord Bolingbroke is something superior to any thing I have seen in human nature. You know I don't deal much in hyperboles. I quite think him what I say.

The same.

Addison had Budgel, and I think Philips, in the house with him. Gay they would call one of my eleves. They were angry with me for keeping so much with Dr. Swift, and some of the late ministry. Parnell was with me too, and had come over from the others when Lord Oxford was at the head of affairs. On Parnell's having been introduced into Bolingbroke's company, and his speaking afterwards of the great pleasure he had in his conversation, Mr. Addison came out with his old expression, “ If he had but as good a heart as he has a head!"

and applied to him, "that canker'd Bolingbroke!" from Shakspeare.-The same.

There had been a coldness between Mr. Addison and me for some time; and we had not been in company together for a good while any where, but at Button's Coffeehouse; where I used to see him almost every day. On his meeting me there one day in particular, he took me aside, and said, he should be glad to dine with me at such a tavern, if I would stay till these people were gone (Budgell and Philips). We went accordingly; and after dinner Mr. Addison said, " he had wanted for some time to talk with me; that he found Tickell had formerly, whilst at Oxford, translated the first book of the Iliad ; that he now designed to print it, and had desired him to look it over: that he must therefore beg that I would not desire him to look over my first book, because, if he did, it would have the air of double dealing." I assured him that "I did not at all take it ill of Mr. Tickell that he was going to publish his translation: that he certainly