LETTER V. Mr. STEELE to Mr. POPE. Νου. 12, 1712. HAVE read over your Temple of Fame twice, and cannot find any thing amifs, of weight enough to call a fault, but fee in it a thousand thoufand beauties. Mr. Addison shall fee it to-morrow: after his perufal of it, I will let you know his thoughts. I defire you would let me know whether you are, at leisure or not? I have a defign which I fhall open a month or two hence, with the affiftance of the few like yourself. If your thoughts are unengaged, I fhall explain myself further. I am Your, etc. γου LETTER VI Nov. 16, 1712.. The Anfwer. ou oblige me by the indulgence you have fhewn to the poem I sent you, but will oblige me much more by the kind severity I hope for from you. No errors are fo trivial, but they deserve to be mended. But fince you fay you fee nothing that may be call'd a fault, can you but think it fo, that I have confin'd the attendance of Guardian spirits * to Heaven's favourites only? I could point you to several, but 'tis my bufnefs to be inform'd of those faults I do not know; and as for those I do, not to talk of them, but to correct them. You speak of that poem in a ftyle I neither *This is not now to be found in the Temple of Fame, which was the Poem here fpoken of. 1 merit, nor expect; but, I affure you, if you freely mark or dash out, I fhall look upon your blots to be its greatest beauties; I mean, if Mr. Addifon and yourself fhould like it in the whole; otherwife the trouble of correction is what I would not take, for I was really fo diffident of it as to let it lie by me these two years*, just as you now see it. I am afraid of nothing fo much as to impofe any thing on the world which is unworthy of its acceptance. As to the last period of your letter, I shall be very ready and glad to contribute to any defign that tends to the advantage of mankind, which, I am fure, all yours do. I wish I had but as much capacity as leifure, for I am perfectly idle: (a fign I have not much capacity.) If you will entertain the best pleas'd to think me your friend. opinion of me, be Affure Mr. Addison of my most faithful fervice, of every one's esteem he muft be affur'd already. I am Your, etc. I LETTER VII. To Mr. STEELE. Nov. 29, 1712. A м forry you published that notion about Adrian's verfes as mine: had I imagined you would ufe my name, I should have express'd my fentiments with more modesty and diffidence. I only fent it to have your opinion, and not to publish my own, which I distrusted. But I think the fuppofition you draw from the notion of Adrian's being addicted to magick, is a little uncha *Hence it appears this Poem was writ when the Author was twenty-two years old. ritable(that he might fear no fort of deity, good or bad"), fince in the third verse he plainly teftifies his apprehenfion of a future ftate, by being folicitous whither his foul was going. As to what you mention of his ufing gay and ludicrous expreffions, I have own'd my opinion to be, that the expreffions are not fo, but that diminutives are as often, in the Latin tongue, ufed as marks of tenderness and concern. Anima is no more than my foul, animula has the force of my dear foul. To fay virgo bella is not half so endearing as virguncula bellula; and had Auguftus only call'd Horace lepidum hominem, it had amounted to no more than that he thought him a pleasant fellow: 'twas the homunciolum that express'd the love and tenderness that great Emperor had for him. And perhaps I should myself be much better pleas'd, if I were told you call'd me your little friend, than if you complimented me with the title of a great genius, or an eminent hand, as Jacob does all his authors. I am Your, etc. LETTER VIII. From Mr. STEELE. Dec. 4, 1712. THIS is to defire of you that you would please to make an ode as of a chearful dying fpirit, that is to say, the Emperor Adrian's Animula vagula put into two or three ftanzas for mufick. If you comply with this, and fend me word fo, you will very particularly oblige Your, etc. I LETTER IX. Do not fend you word I will do, but have already done the thing you defired of me. You have it (as Cowley calls it) juft warm from the brain. It came to me the first moment I waked this morning: Yet, you'll fee, it was not fo abfolutely inspiration, but that I had in my head not only the verses of Adrian, but the fine fragment of Sappho, etc. The dying Chriftian to his SOUL. O D E. I. Vital spark of heav'nly flame! II. Hark! they whisper; Angels fay, What is this abforbs me quite, Drowns my fpirits, draws my breath? III. The world recedes; it disappears! Heav'n opens on my eyes! my ears O Death! where is thy fting? LETTER To Mr. ADDISON. X. July 20, 1713, I A M more joy'd at your return than I fhou'd be at that of the fun, fo much as I wifh for him this 'melancholy wet season ; but 'tis his fate too, like yours, to be difpleafing to Owls and obfcene animals, who cannot bear his luftre. What put me in mind of these night-birds was John Dennis, whom, I think, you are best revenged upon, as the Sun was in the fable upon thefe bats and beastly birds above mentioned, only by Shining on. I am so far from efteeming it any misfortune, that I congratulate you upon having your share in that, which all the great men and all the good men that ever lived have had their part of, Envy and. Calumny. To be uncenfured and to be obfcure, is the fame thing. You may conclude from what I here say, that 'twas never in my thoughts to have offered you my pen in any direct reply to fuch a Critick, but only in fome little raillery; not in defence of you, but in contempt of him*. But indeed your opinion, that 'tis entirely to be neglected, would have been my own had it been my own cafe: but I felt more warmth here than I did when firft I faw his book against myself (tho' indeed in two minutes it made me heartily merry). He has written against every thing the world has approv'd thefe many years. I apprehend but one danger from Dennis's difliking our fenfe, that it may make us think so very well of it, as to become proud and conceited, upon his difapprobation. *This relates to the paper occafioned by Dennis's Remarks upon Cato, call'd Dr. Norris's Narrative of the Frenzy of John Dennis. |