LETTER XIII.

TO MR. ADDISON,

YOUR laft is the more obliging, as it hints at fome little niceties in my conduct, which your candour and affection prompts you to recommend to me, and which (so trivial as things of this nature feem) are yet of no flight confequence, to people whom every body talks of, and every body as he pleases. 'Tis a fort of Tax that attends an eftate in Parnaffus, which is often rated much higher than in proportion to the fmall poffeffion an author holds. For indeed an author, who is once come upon the town, is enjoyed without being thanked for the pleasure, and fometimes ill-treated by those very perfons who firft debauched him. Yet, to tell you the bottom of my heart, I am no way difpleased that I have offended the violent of all parties already; and at the fame time I affure you confcientiously, I feel not the leaft malevolence or refentment against any of thofe who mifrepresent me, or are diffatisfied with me. This frame of mind is fo eafy, that I am perfectly content with my condition.

As I hope, and would flatter myself, that you know me and my thoughts fo entirely as never to be mistaken in either, fo 'tis a pleasure to me

that you gueffed fo right in regard to the author of that Guardian* you mentioned. But I am forry to find it has taken air, that I have fome hand in those papers, because I write so very few as neither to deserve the credit of fuch a report with fome people, nor the difrepute of it with others. An honest Jacobite spoke to me the fere or nonsense of the weak part of his party e ery fairly, that the good people took it ill of me, that I writ with Steele, though upon never fo indifferent fubjects. This, I know, you will laugh at as well as I do; yet I doubt not but many little calumniators and perfons of four difpofitions will take occafion hence to befpatter me. I confefs I fcorn narrow fouls, of all parties, and if I renounce my reafon in religious matters, I'll hardly do it in any

other.

I can't imagine whence it comes to pass that the few Guardians I have written are fo generally known for mine: that in particular which you mention I never difcovered to any man but the publifher, till very lately: yet almoft every body told me of it.

As to his taking a more politic turn, I cannot any way enter into that fecret, nor have I been let into it, any more than into the rest of his politics. Though

Poffibly the ironical praife of Phillips's Paftorals, which deceived, it is faid, Steele, but not Addison, who immediately knew the author to be Pope himself.

Though 'tis faid he will take into these papers also feveral fubjects of the politer kind, as before: but, I affure you, as to myself, I have quite done with them for the future. The little I have done, and the great respect I bear Mr. Steele as a man of wit, has rendered me a fufpected Whig to fome of the violent; but (as old Dryden faid before me) 'tis not the violent I defign to please *.

I generally employ the mornings in painting with Mr. Jervas, and the evenings in the converfation of fuch as I think can moft improve my mind, of whatever denomination they are. I ever muft fet the highest value upon men of truly great, that is, honeft principles, with equal capacities. The best way I know of overcoming calumny and misconstruction, is by a vigorous perfeverance in every thing we know to be right, and a total neglect of all that can enfue from it. 'Tis partly from this maxim that I depend upon your friendship, because I believe it would do juftice to my intention in every thing; and give me leave to tell you, that (as the world goes) this is no fmall affurance I repose in you. I am

Your, etc.

* But poor Dryden could not fay this with truth. How much did he write to please the violent!

See the Epistle to him in verfe, writ about this time.

WARTON.

POPE.

LETTER XIV.

TO MR. ADDISON.

December 14, 1713.

I

HAVE been lying in wait for my own imagi nation, this week and more, and watching what thoughts came up in the whirl of the fancy, that were worth communicating to you in a letter. But I am at length convinced that my rambling head can produce nothing of that fort; fo I must e'en be contented with telling you the old ftory, that I love you heartily. I have often found by experience, that nature and truth, though never fo low or vulgar, are yet pleafing when openly and artlessly represented: it would be diverting to me to read the very letters of an infant, could it write its innocent inconfiftencies and tautologies just as it thought them. This makes me hope a letter from me will not be unwelcome to you, when I am confcious I write with more unrefervedness than ever man wrote, or perhaps talked to another. I trust your good-nature with the whole range of my follies, and really love you fo well, that I would rather you should pardon me than esteem me; fince one is an act of goodness and benevolence, the other a kind of constrained defer

ence.

You

You can't wonder my thoughts are scarce confiftent, when I tell you how they are distracted. Every hour of my life my mind is strangely divided; this minute perhaps I am above the stars, with a thousand systems round about me, looking forward into a vast abyfs, and lofing my whole comprehenfion in the boundless space of Creation, in dialogues with Whiston and the Aftronomers; the next moment I am below all trifles groveling with T * in the very centre of nonfenfe: now I am recreated with the brifk fallies and quick turns of wit which Mr. Steele in his livelieft and freeft humours darts about him; and now levelling my application to the infignificant obfervations and quirks of Grammar of C and D *. Good God! what an incongruous animal is man! how unfettled in his best part, his foul! and how changing and variable in his frame of body! the conftancy of the one shook by every notion, the temperament of the other affected by every blast of wind! What is he altogether but one mighty inconfiftency; fickness and pain is the lot of one half of him; doubt and fear the portion of the other! What a bustle we make about paffing our time, when all our space is but a point! what aims and ambitions are crowded into this little instant of our life, which (as Shakespear finely words it) is rounded with a fleep! Our whole

extent

* Addison must have smiled at receiving a letter fo full of folemn declamation, and so many trite moralities! WARTON.