L E T T E R VUI

From Sir WILLIAM

TRUMBULL.

Jan. 19. 1715-16.`

I Should be afham'd of my long idleness, in not acknowledging your kind advice about Echo, and your most ingenious explanation of it relating to popular tumults; which I own to be very useful:` and yet give me leave to tell you, that I keep myself to a fhorter receipt of the fame Pythagoras, which is Silence; and this I fhall obferve, if not the whole time of his discipline, yet at least till your return into this country. I am obliged further to this method, by the most severe weather I ever felt; when, though I keep as near by the fire-fide as may be, yet gelidus concrevit frigore fanguis; and often I apprehend the circulation of the blood begins to be stopp'd. I have further great loffes (to a poor farmer) of my poor oxen -Intereunt pecudes, ftant circumfufa pruinis Corpora magna boum, &c.

Pray comfort me, if you can, by telling me that

your fecond volume of Homer is not frozen; for it must be express'd very poetically, to fay now, that the preffes fweat.

I cannot forbear to add a piece of artifice I have been guilty of, on occafion of my being obliged to congratulate the birth-day of a friend of mine: when find. ing I had no materials of my own, 1 very frankly fent him your imitation of Martial's epigram on Antonius

Primus*. This has been applauded fo much, that I am in danger of commencing Poet, perhaps laureat, (pray defire my good friend Mr Rowe to enter a caveat) provided you will further increase my stock in this bank. In which proceeding I have laid the foundation of my eftate, and as honeftly, as many others have begun theirs. But now being a little fearful, as young beginners often are, I offer to you (for I have conceal'd the true author) whether you will give me orders to declare who is the father of this fine child or not? Whatever you determine, my fingers, pen and ink are fo frozen, that I cannot thank you more at large. You will forgive this and all other faults of, Dear Sir,

Your, &c.

Jam numerat placido felix Antonius avo, bc.
At length my Friend (while Time with still career
Wafts on his gentle wing his eightieth year)
Sees his past days safe out of fortune's pow'r,
Nor dreads approaching Fate's uncertain hour;
Reviews his life, and in the strict survey

Finds not one moment he could wish away,
Pleas'd with the series of each happy day.
Such, fuch a man extends his life's short space,
And from the goal again renews the race:
For he lives twice, who can at once employ
The prefent well, and even the past enjoy.

LETTERS

TO AND FROM

SEVERAL PERSONS.

From the Year 1711 to 1714

I

LETTER I.

To the Hon. J. C. Efq.

June 15. 1711. Send you Dennis's remarks on the * Effay; which

equally abound in just criticisms and fine railleries. The few obfervations in my hand in the margins, are what a morning's leifure permitted me to make purely for your perufal. For I am of opinion that fuch a critic, as you will find him by the latter part of his Book, is but one way to be properly answer'd, and that way I would not take after what he informs me in his preface, that he is at this time perfecuted by fortune. This I knew not before; if I had, his name had been spared in the Effay, for that only rea fon. I can't conceive what ground he has for fo excel

On Criticifm..

*

five a refentment; nor imagine how these three lines can be called a reflection on his perfon, which only describe him fubject a little to anger on fome occafions. I have heard of combatants fo very furious, as to fall down themselves with that very blow which they defign'd to lay heavy on their antagonists. But if Mr. Dennis's rage proceeds only from a zeal to difcourage young and unexperienced writers from fcribling, he fhould frighten us with his verfe, not profe: for I have often known, that, when all the precepts in the world would not reclaim a finner, fome very fad example has done the bufinefs. Yet to give this man his due, he has objected to one or two lines with reafon, and I will alter them in cafe of another edition; I will make my enemy do me a kindnefs where he meant an injury, and fo ferve instead of a friend. What he obferves at the bottom of page 20. of his reflections, was objected to by yourself, and had been mended but for the hafte of the prefs: I confefs it what the English call a Bull, in the expreffion, tho' the sense be manifest enough: Mr Dennis's Bulls are feldom in the expreffion, they are generally in the sense.

I shall certainly never make the least reply to him; not only because you advise me, but because I have ever been of opinion, that, if a book can't answer for itself to the public, 'tis to no fort of purpose for its author to do it. If I am wrong in any sentiment of that Effay, I proteft fincerely, I don't defire all the VOL. V.

A a

But Appius reddens at each word you speak,
And ftares tremendous with a threat'ning eye,
Like fome fierce tyrant in old tapestry.

world fhould be deceived (which would be of very ill confequence) merely that I myself may be thought right (which is of very little confequence) I would be the first to recant, for the benefit of others, and the glory of myfelf; for (as I take it) when a man owns himself to have been in an error, he does but tell you in other words, that he is wifer than he was. But I have had an advantage by the publishing that book, which otherwife I should never have known; it has been the occafion of making me friends and open abettors, of feveral gentlemen of known sense and wit; and of proving to me what I have till now doubted, that my writings are taken fome notice of by the world, or I fhould never be attacked thús in particuJar. I have read that 'twas a custom among the Romans, while a General rode in triumph to have the common foldiers in the streets that railed at him and reproached him; to put him in mind, that tho' his fervices were in the main approved and rewarded, yet he had faults enough to keep him humble.

You will fee by this, that whoever sets up for wit in these days ought to have the conftancy of a primitive Chriftian, and be prepared to fuffer martyrdom in the cause of it. But fure this is the first time that a Wit was attacked for his Religion, as, you'll find, I am moft zealously in this treatife; and you know, Sir, what alarms I have had from the * oppofite fide on this account. Have I not reason to cry out with the the poor fellow in Virgil,

See the enfuing Letter.