cease to think me your friend, that you may not be guilty of that which you never yet knew to commit, an injuftice. As I have hitherto been so in spite of the world, fo hereafter, if it be poffible you should ever be more opposed, and more deferted, I fhould only be fo much the more Your faithful, etc. LETTER XX.* I CAN fay little to recommend the letters I fhall write to you, but that they will be the most impartial representations of a free heart, and the trueft copies you ever faw, though of a very mean original. Not a feature will be foftened, or any advantageous light employed to make the ugly thing a little less hideous; but you fhall find it, in all respects, most horribly like. You will do me an injuftice if you look upon any thing I fhall fay from this inftant, as a compliment either to you or to myself: whatever I write will be the real thought of that hour; and I know you'll no more expect * To Lady M. W. Montagu. Her beauty, accomplishments, fuperior birth, &c. feem to have made fuch a fudden impreffion on Pope's fufceptible bofom, that for a moment the charms of Teresa and Martha Blount were forgotten, and loft in the blaze of fuperior elegance and fashion. expect it of me to persevere till death, in every fentiment or notion I now fet down, than you would imagine a man's face should never change when once his picture was drawn. The freedom I fhall ufe in this manner of thinking aloud, may indeed prove me a fool; but it will prove me one of the best fort of fools, the honest ones. And fince what folly we have, will infallibly buoy up at one time or other in fpite of all our art to keep it down; methinks, 'tis almoft foolish to take any pains to conceal it at all, and almost knavish to do it from thofe that are our friends. If Momus's project had taken, of having windows in our breasts, I should be for carrying it further, and making those windows cafements; that while a man fhowed his heart to all the world, he might do fomething more for his friends; even give it them, and truft it to their handling. I think I love you as well as King Herod did Herodias, (though I never had so much as one dance with you,) and would as freely give you my heart in a difh, as he did another's head. But fince Jupiter will not have it fo, I must be content to fhew my tafte in life," as I do my tafte in painting, by loving to have as little drapery as poffible. Not that I think every body naked altogether fo fine a fight, as yourfelf and a few more would be, but becaufe 'tis good to ufe people to what they must be acquainted with: and there will certainly come fome day of judgment or other, to uncover every foul of us. We fhall then fee that the 8 prudes prudes of this world owed all their fine figure only to their being straiter-laced than the reft; and that they are naturally as arrant fquabs as those that went more loose, nay as those that never girded their loins at all. But a particular reason that may engage you to write your thoughts the more freely to me, is, that I am confident no one knows you better; for I find, when others exprefs their thoughts of you, they fall very short of mine, and, I know, at the fame time, theirs are fuch as you would think fufficiently in your favour. You may eafily imagine how defirous I must be of a correfpondence with a perfon, who had taught me long ago that it was as poffible to esteem at first fight*, as to love: and who has fince ruined me for all the converfation of one fex, and almost all the friendship of the other. I am but too sensible, through your means, that the company of men wants a certain softness to recommend it, and that of women wants every thing else. How often have I been quietly going to take poffeffion of that tranquillity and indolence I had so long found in the Country; when one evening of your converfation has spoiled me for a Solitaire! Books have loft their effect upon me, and I was convinced fince I faw you, that there is one alive wiser than all the fages. A plague of female wifdom! it makes a man ten times more uneafy than his own. What is very strange, Virtue herself (when you have the dreff * See Note at the beginning. ing ing her) is too amiable for one's repofe. You might have done a world of good in your time, if you had allowed half the fine gentlemen who have seen you, to have conversed with you; they would have been ftrangely bit, while they thought only to fall in love with a fair lady, and you had bewitched them with Reafon and Virtue (two beauties that the very fops pretend to no acquaintance with). The unhappy distance at which we correspond*, removes a great many of those restrictions and punctilious decorums, that oftentimes in nearer converfation prejudice truth, to fave good-breeding. I may now hear of my faults, and you of your good qualities, without a blush; we converse upon such unfortunate generous terms, as exclude the regards of fear, fhame, or defign, in either of us. And, methinks, it would be as paultry a part, to impose (even in a single thought) upon each other in this state of feparation, as for fpirits of a different sphere, who have fo little intercourse with us, to employ that little (as fome would make us *Lady Montagu was at this time at Conftantinople. Pope has here fuppreffed part of the Letter, which may be feen in Dallaway's edition. The groffness of it will fufficiently explain Pope's meaning; and I have little doubt, but that the Lady, difdaining the ftiff and formal mode of female manners at that time prevalent, made the Lover believe he might proceed a lep farther than decorum would allow. As the paffage alluded to may be seen, the reader will perceive that here Pope has certainly exhibited, without difguife, (as he fays in the beginning of the Letter,) the "impartial representation of a free heart." His pictures were indeed fo free, that he must have a ftrange opinion of her, if he could fuppofe fhe would not refent it. us think they do) in putting tricks and delufions upon poor mortals. Let me begin then, Madam, by asking you a ques tion, that may enable me to judge better of my own conduct than most inftances of my life. In what manner did I behave in the last hour I faw you? What degree of concern did I difcover, when I felt a miffortune, which, I hope, you will never feel, that of parting from what one most esteems? for if my parting looked but like that of your common acquaintance, I am the greatest of all the hypocrites that ever decency made. I never fince pass by your house but with the fame fort of melancholy that we feel upon feeing the tomb of a friend, which only ferves to put us in mind of what we have loft. I reflect upon the circumstances of your departure, which I was there a witness of, (your behaviour in what I may call your laft moments,) and I indulge a gloomy kind of pleasure in thinking that those last moments were given to me. I would fain imagine that this was not accidental, but proceeded from a penetration, which I know you have, in finding out the truth of people's fentiments; and that you are willing, the last man that would have parted from you, should be the last that did. I really looked upon you just as the friends of Curtius might have done upon that Hero, at the inftant when he was devoting himself to glory, and running to be loft out of generofity: I was obliged to admire your refolution, in as great |