the right even over you own-sentiments, of the privilege of every human creature to divulge or conceal them; of the advantage of your fecond thoughts; and of all the benefit of your Prudence, your Candour, or your Modefty. As a Member of fociety, you are yet more injured; your private conduct, your domestic concerns, your family fecrets, your paffions, your tenderneffes, your weakneffes, are expofed to the Mifconftruction or Refentment of fome, to the Cenfure or Impertinence of the whole world. The printing private letters in fuch a manner, is the worst fort of betraying Converfation, as it has evidently the most extensive, and the most lafting, ill confequences. It is the highest offence against Society, as it renders the moft dear and intimate intercourfe of friend with friend, and the moft neceffary commerce of man with man, unsafe and to be dreaded. To open Letters, is esteemed the greatest breach of honour; even to look into them already opened or accidentally dropt, is held an ungenerous, if not an immoral act. What then can be thought of the procuring them merely by Fraud, and the printing them merely for Lucre? We cannot but conclude, every honest man will wifh, that if the Laws have as yet provided no adequate remedy, one at leaft may be found, to pre vent so great and growing an evil.

O F

VOLUME FIFTH.

LETTERS to and from MR WYCHERLEY.

From the Year 1704 to 1710.

LETTER

P. 3.

1. F Mr Dryden's death: his moral cha-

racter: the poets who fucceeded him; the

temper of critics.

II. From Mr Wycherley.

III. Mr Wycherley's humanity; his encouragement of

young writers; concerning the Author's Paftorals.

IV. From Mr Wycherley; Anfwer to the former.

V. From the fame.

VI Some reasons why friendships may be contrac-

ted between perfons of unequal years, and the

advantage of fuch friendships.

VII. Against Compliment.

VIII. An account of the duller fort of Country Gen-

tlemen, and Country Life.

IX. From Mr Wycherley.

X. From Mr Wycherley. Of the correction of his

Poem to Mr Dryden, and other papers.

XI. Of the fame, a plan for correcting and impro-

ving those poems.

XII. From Mr Wycherley.

XIII. On the fame, and further proposals for correct-

ing them.

LETTER

XIV. From Mr Wycherley.

XV. More concerning corrections of the poems.

XVI. From Mr Wycherley, after his illness

XVII. From Mr Wycherley.

XVIII. From Mr Wycherley. Concerning the Mifcel-

lanies and the Critics.

XIX. Concerning Mifcellanies, and the danger of
young poets.

XX. XXI. From Mr Wycherley

XXII. From Mr Wycherley. His defire of his compa-

ny; and request to proceed in correcting his

papers.

XXIII. More about the poems

XXIV. Corrections fent.

XXV. From Mr Wycherley In answer to the account
of the ftate of his papers.

XXVI. The last advice about his papers, to turn them
into Jelect Maxims and Reflections, which Mr
Wycherley agreed to and begun before his death.

LETTERS to and from Mr WALSH.

From 1705. to 1707.

LETTER

1. Mr Walsh to Mr Wycherley.

P. 46.

II. Mr Wal to Mr Pope. Concerning paftoral

and paftoral comedy.

III. The answer. Of correcting, and the extreme of
it. Of paftoral comedy, and its character. Of
the liberty of borrowing from the ancients.

IV. From Mr Walsh. On the fame fubjects.

LETTER

V. From Mr Walsh. Of mechanical critics; of
wit and conceit, a request concerning one of his
paftorals.

VI. Some critical obfervations in English Verfifica-

tion.

LETTERS to and from Mr CROMWELL.
From 1708 to 1711.

LETTER

I. II. III. To Mr Cromwell.

P. 60

IV. Concerning the first publication of the author's

poems.

V. Of his tranflation of the first book of Statius.

VI. Of his Juvenile Poems.

VII. Criticisms on Statius.

VIII. Of Mr Wycherley's coldness.

IX. Of the general conduct and inequality of men's

lives.

X. The use of poetical studies. A panegyrick upon
dogs.

XI. Of the Taste of country gentlemen.

XII.

XIII. After an illness. The obfcurity of a country life.

XIV. On the fame fubject.

XV. From Mr Cromwell.

Pyrrhus in Virgil.

XVI. Answer to the fame.

Concerning Rondeaus.

On Priam's Speech to

XVII Criticism about an elegy of Ovid.

XVIII. On fickness and disappointment.

XIX.

XX Of Philips's paftorals,

XXI. From Mr Cromwell. On a paffage in Lucan.