fevere and barbarous than those tyrants? and that enemy the gentleft too, the best natured of mortals, Mr. Cromwell, whom I muft in this compare once more to Auguftus; who feemed not more unlike himself in the severity of one part of his life and the clemency of the other, than you. I leave you to reflect on this, and hope that time (which mollifies rocks, and of stiff things makes limber) will turn a refolute critic to a gentle reader; and inftead of this pofitive, tremendous new-fashioned Mr. Cromwell, reftore unto us our old acquaintance, the soft, beneficent, and courteous Mr. Cromwell. I expect much, towards the civilizing of you in your critical capacity, from the innocent air and tranquillity of our Foreft, when you do me the favour to vifit it. In the mean time, it would do well by way of preparative, if you would duly and constantly every morning read over a paftoral of Theocritus or Virgil; and let the lady Isabella put your Macrobius and Aulus Gellius fomewhere out of your way, for a month or fo. Who knows but travelling and long airing in an open field, may contribute more fuccessfully to the cooling a critic's feverity, than it did to the affuaging of Mr. Cheek's anger of old? In these fields, you will be fecure of finding no enemy, but the most faithful and affectionate of your friends, etc. LETTER XIII. May 17, 1710. A " FTER I had recovered from a dangerous illness, which was first contracted in town about a fortnight after my coming hither, 1 troubled you with a letter, and paper inclofed, which you had been fo obliging as to defire a fight of when last I saw you, promifing me in return fome translations of yours from Ovid. Since when I have not had a fyllable from your hands, fo that 'tis to be feared that though I have escaped death, I have not oblivion. I fhould at least have expected you to have finished that elegy upon me, which you told me you was upon the point of beginning when I was fick in London; if you but do so much for me first, I will give you leave to forget me afterwards; and for my own part will die at discretion, and at my leifure. But I fear I must be forced, like many learned authors, to write my own epitaph, if I would be remembered at all. Monfiur de la Fontaine's would fit me to a hair, but it is a kind of facrilege (do you think it is not?) to steal epitaphs. In my prefent living dead condition nothing would be properer than Oblitufque meorum, oblivifcendus et illis, but that unluckily I can't forget will my " Verses on Silence, in imitation of the Earl of Rochefter's poem on Nothing; done at fourteen years old. POPE. my friends, and the civilities I received from yourself, and fome others. They fay indeed 'tis one quality of generous minds to forget the obligation they have conferred, and perhaps too it may be so to forget those on whom they conferred 'em: Then indeed I must be forgotten to all intents and purposes! I am, it must be owned, dead in a natural capacity, according to Mr. Bickerftaff; dead in a poetical capacity, as a damned author; and dead in a civil capacity, as a useless member of the Commonwealth. But reflect, dear Sir, what melancholy effects may enfue, if dead men are not civil to one another! If he who has nothing to do himself will not comfort and fupport another in his idlenefs: if those who are to die themselves, will not now and then pay the charity of visiting a tomb and a dead friend, and ftrowing a few flowers over him: In the fhades where I am, the inhabitants have a mutual compaffion for each other; being all alike Inanes; we faunter to one another's habitations, and daily affift each other in doing nothing at all. This I mention for your edification and example, that all alive as you are, you may not fometimes difdain-defipere in loco. Though you are no Papist, and have not fo much regard to the dead as to address yourself to them, (which I plainly perceive by your filence,) yet I hope you are not one of thofe heterodox, who hold them to be totally infenfible of the good offices and kind wishes of their living friends, and to be in a dull state of fleep with out out one dream of thofe they left behind them. If P. S. This letter of deaths, puts me in mind of poor Mr. Betterton's *; over whom I would have this fentence of Tully for an epitaph, which will ferve him as well in his Moral, as his Theatrical capacity. Vitæ bene actæ jucundiffima eft recordatio. This excellent man, and excellent actor, haftened his death by repelling a fit of the gout, which he did to enable himself to act, for his own benefit, the part of Melantius in the Maid's Tragedy. This was on the 25th of April 1710; and though he performed this his favourite part with great fpirit, yet the distemper feized his head, and he died on the 28th of May following. The beft paper that Steele wrote in the Tatler, No. 167, contains an account of his death, and the splendid ceremony of his interment in Westminster Abbey. Voltaire speaks in high terms of the good fenfe of the English in paying fuch honours to deceased actors; and seriously animadverts on his countrymen, for their bigotted and illiberal practice of even denying them Chriftian bunal. Mr. Garrick merited, and obtained, the fame funeral honours, and was followed to Weftminster Abbey by a great concourse of those friends and spectators, whom he had so often moved and delighted: An old frequenter of the theatre informed me, that the last time Betterton appeared on the ftage, the curiofity of the public was so much excited, that many fpectators got into the playhouse by nine o'clock in the morning, and carried with them provifions for the day. WARTON. LETTER XIV. June 24, 1710. "Tis very natural for a young friend, and a young Pour le moins, votre compliment J'ai chaffé mon apoticaire, will |