I

LETTER VII.

REV. DEAN BERKLEY TO MR. POPE.

Naples, Oct. 22, N. S. 1717.

HAVE long had it in my thoughts to trouble you

with a letter, but was discouraged for want of fomething that I could think worth sending fifteen hundred miles. Italy is fuch an exhausted subject, that, I dare fay, you'd eafily forgive my faying nothing of it; and the imagination of a Poet is a thing fo nice and delicate, that it is no eafy matter to find out images capable of giving pleasure to one of the few, who (in any age) have come up to that character. I am nevertheless lately returned from an island, where I passed three or four months; which, were it set out in its true colours, might, methinks, amuse you agreeably enough for a minute or two. The island Inarime is an epitome of the whole earth, containing, within the compass of eighteen miles, a wonderful variety of hills, vales, ragged rocks, fruitful plains, and barren mountains, all thrown together in a moft romantic confufion. The air is in the hottest season constantly refreshed by cool breezes from the fea. The vales produce excellent wheat and Indian corn, but are mostly covered with vineyards intermixed

with

f Afterwards Bishop of Cloyne in Ireland, Author of the Dialogues of Hylas and Philonous, the Minute Philofopher, etc. W.

with fruit-trees. Befides the common kinds, as cherries, apricots, peaches, etc. they produce oranges, limes, almonds, pomegranates, figs, water-melons, and many other fruits unknown to our climates, which lie every-where open to the paffenger. The hills are the greater part covered to the top with vines, fome with chefnut groves, and others with thickets of myrtle and lentifcus. The fields in the northern fide are divided by hedge-rows of myrtle. Several fountains and rivulets add to the beauty of this landfcape, which is likewise set off by the variety of fome barren spots, and naked rocks. But that which crowns the scene is a large mountain, rifing out of the middle of the island (once a terrible Volcano, by the ancients called Mons Epomeus); its lower parts are adorned with vines, and other fruits; the middle affords pasture to flocks of goats and sheep, and the top is a fandy pointed rock, from which you have the finest prospect in the world, furveying, at one view, befides several pleasant iflands lying at your feet, a tract of Italy about three hundred miles in length, from the promontory of Antium to the cape of Palinurus; the greater part of which hath been fung by Homer and Virgil, as making a confiderable part of the travels and adventures of their two heroes. The iflands Caprea, Prochyta*, and Parthenope, together

We must lament that we have no more letters of Bp. Berkley; who, we fee by this before us, poffeffed the uncommon talent of defcribing places in the moft lively and graphical manner; a talent

gether with Cajeta, Cumæ, Monte Mifeno, the habitations of Circe, the Syrens, and the Læftrigones, the bay of Naples, the promontory of Minerva, and the whole Campagnia Felice, make but a part of this noble landscape; which would demand an imagination as warm, and numbers as flowing as your own, to describe it. The inhabitants of this delicious ifle, as they are without riches and honours, so are they without the vices and follies that attend them; and were they but as much strangers to revenge, as they are to avarice and ambition, they might in fact anfwer the poetical notions of the golden age. But they have got, as an alloy to their happiness, an ill habit of murdering one another on flight offences. We had an instance of this the second night after our arrival, a youth of eighteen being fhot dead by our door and yet by the fole fecret of minding our own business, we found a means of living fecurely among thofe dangerous people. Would you know how we pass the time at Naples? Our chief entertainment is the devotion of our neighbours: befides the gaiety of their churches (where folks go to fee what they call una bella Devotione, i. e. a fort of religious opera) they make fireworks almost every week, out of devotion; the streets are often hung with arras, out of devotion; and (what is ftill more strange) the ladies invite gentlemen to their houses, and treat them with

mufic

in which he has been equalled or excelled only by Mr. Gray, in many of those most lively and entertaining letters published by Mr. Mason; those especially written during his travels.

mufic and sweatmeats, out of devotion; in a word, were it not for this devotion of its inhabitants, Naples would have little elfe to recommend it, befide the air and fituation. Learning is in no very thriving state here, as indeed no where else in Italy; however, among many pretenders, fome men of taste are to be met with. A friend of mine told me not long fince, that, being to visit Salvini at Florence, he found him reading your Homer: he liked the notes extremely, and could find no other fault with the version, but that he thought it approached too near a paraphrase; which fhews him not to be fufficiently acquainted with our language. I wish you health to go on with that noble work, and when you have that, I need not wish you fuccefs. You will do me the juftice to believe, that whatever relates to your welfare is fincerely wished by

Your, etc.

LETTER VIII.

MR. POPE TO THE REV. MR. BERKLEY.

Dear Sir,

Sunday.

MY y Lord Bishop Atterbury was very much con

cerned at miffing you yesterday: he defired me to engage you and myself to dine with him this day; but I was unluckily pre-engaged. And, (upon my telling him I fhould carry you out of town to

morrow,

morrow, and hoped to keep you till the end of the week,) he has defired that we will not fail to dine with him the next Sunday, when he will have no other company.

I write you this to intreat you will provide yourself of linen and other neceffaries fufficient for the week; for as I take you to be almost the only friend I have, that is above the little vanities of the town, I expect you may be able to renounce it for one week, and to make trial how you like my Tufculum, because, I affure you, it is no lefs yours, and hope you will use it as your own country villa the enfuing season. I am yours, etc.

LETTER IX.

MR. POPE TO * *

December 21, 1718.

THE

HE old project of a window in the bofom, to render the foul of man vifible, is what every honeft friend has manifold reafon to wifh for ; yet even that would not do in our cafe, while you are fo far separated from me, and fo long. I begin to fear you'll die in Ireland, and that Denunciation will be fulfilled upon you, Hibernus es, et in Hiberniam reverteris. I fhould be apt to think you in Sancho's cafe; fome Duke has made you Governor of an Ifland,

or