be one to you to fay, that I fit up till two a clock over Burgundy and Champagne; and am become fo much a rake, that I fhall be afhamed in a fhort time to be thought to do any fort of business. I fear I muft get the gout by drinking; purely for a fafhionable pretence to fit ftill long enough to tranflate four books of Homer. I hope you'll by that time be up again, and I may fucceed to the bed and couch of my predeceffor: pray cause the stuffing to be repaired, and the crutches fhorten'd'for me. The calamity of your gout is what all your friends, that is to fay, all that know you, must share in; we de fire you in your turn to condole with us, who are under a perfecution, and much afflicted with a diftemper which proves mortal to many poets, a Criticism. We have indeed fome relieving intervals of laughter (as you know there are in fome difeafes) and it is the opinion of divers good gueffers, that the laft fit will not be more violent than advantageous; for poets affail'd by critics, are like men bitten by Tarantula's, they dance on fo much the fafter. '

Mr. Thomas Burnet hath play'd the precurfor to the coming of Homer, in a treatife called Homerides.'" He has fince risen very much in his criticisms, and, after aflaulting Homer, made a daring attack upon the * What-d'ye-call-it. Yet is there not a Proclamation iffued for the burning of Homer and the Pope by the common hangman; nor is the Whatd'ye-call it yet filenced by the Lord chamberlain.

Your, &c.

* In one of his papers called The Grumbler.

P.

LET

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 friendThip and concern for me, and am more affected with it, than I will take upon me to express 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 fo kind to enquire after, it is not worse than in London: I am almoft afraid yet to say that it is better, for I cannot reasonably expect much effect from these waters in fo fhort 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 pleafe myfelf 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 fhould 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 shall have your company. I believe it high time you should think of adminiftring another Emetic.

VOL. VII.

Q

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.

SI take ingratitude to be a greater crime than impertinence, I chuse 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. I have accidentally met with your Rape of the Lock here, having never seen 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 raife fo furprisingly, and at the fame time so 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 fome 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 fhe felt the fame 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 ftore his mind with strong images of Nature.

Green fields and groves, flowery meadows and purling ftreams are no where in fuch perfection as in England: but if you would know lightsome days, warm funs, and blue fkies, you must come to Italy: and to enable a man to defcribe 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 these parts I fhould 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 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 ftay 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 cross 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 yourfelves, 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 muft tranflate and comment; and I may the more fincerely wifh for good poetry from others because I am become a perfon out of the queftion; 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 Bleffing dear:

but