LETTER XXI. FROM MR. WYCHERLEY. Aug. 11, 1709. My Letters, fo much inferior to yours, can only make up their scarcity of fenfe by their number of lines; which is like the Spaniards paying a debt of gold with a load of brafs money. But to be a Plain Dealer, I must tell you, I will revenge the raillery of your Letters by printing them (as Dennis did mine '), without your knowledge too, which would be a revenge upon your judgment for the raillery of your wit; for fome dull rogues (that is, the most in the world) might be fuch fools as to think what you faid of me was in earneft: It is not the firft time your great wits have gained reputation by their paradoxical or ironical praises; your forefathers have done it, Erafmus and others. For all mankind who know me muft confefs, he must be no ordinary genius, or little friend, who can find out any thing to commend in me seriously; who have given no fign of my judgment but my opinion of yours, nor mark of my wit, but my leaving off writing to the public now you are begin * Alluding to his own Play, fo called. Dennis published his correfpondence with Wycherley, Dryden, Congreve, &c. Thefe Letters may be found in the fecond volume of Tom Brown. What is fingular, Dryden speaks of Dennis, as the only perfon who could write a Pindaric ode! beginning to fhew the world what you can do by yours: whose wit is as fpiritual as your judgment infallible: in whofe judgment I have an implicit faith, and fhall always fubfcribe to it to fave my works, in this world, from the flames and damnation.-Pray, present my most humble fervice to Sir William Trumbull; for whom and whofe judgment I have fo profound a refpect, that his example had almost made me marry *, more than my nephew's ill carriage to me; having once refolved to have revenged myfelf upon him by my marriage, but now am refolved to make my revenge greater upon him by His marriage. LETTER XXII. FROM MR. WYCHERLEY. April 1, 1710. I HAVE had yours of the 30th of the last month, which is kinder than I defire it fhould be, fince it tells me you could be better pleased to be sick again in Town in my company, than to be well in the Country without it; and that you are more impatient to be deprived of happiness than of health. Yet, my dear friend, fet raillery or compliment afide, I can your abfence (which procures your health and bear eafe) Wycherley married after this, almoft in articulo mortis, on purpofe to difinherit his nephew. ease) better than I can your company, when you are in pain: for I cannot fee you so without being fo too. Your love to the Country I do not doubt, nor do you (I hope) my love to it or you, fince there I can enjoy your company without feeing you in pain to give me fatisfaction and pleafure; there I can have you without rivals or disturbers; without the too civil, or the too rude: without the noife of the loud or the cenfure of the filent: and would rather have you abuse me there with the truth, than at this diftance with your compliment: fince now, your business of a friend, and kindness to a friend, is by finding fault with his faults, and mending them by your obliging severity. I hope (in point of your goodnature) you will have no cruel charity for those papers of mine, you are fo willing to be troubled with; which I take most infinitely kind of you, and shall acknowledge with gratitude, as long as I live. No friend can do more for his friend than preferving his reputation (nay, not by preserving his life) fince by preferving his life he can only make him live about threescore or fourfcore years; but by preferving his reputation he can make him live as long as the world lafts; fo fave him from damning, when he is gone to the devil. Therefore, I pray, condemn me in pri vate, as the Thieves do their accomplices in Newgate, to fave them from condemnation by the public. Be moft b This is a well-known matter of fact. The prifoners before their trial, try each other in Newgate, and by that means, judge whether they are likely to be acquitted or condemned. most kindly unmerciful to my poetical faults, and do with my papers, as you country-gentlemen do with your trees, flash, cut, and lop off the excrefcences and dead parts of my withered bays, that the little remainder may live the longer, and increase the value of them by diminishing the number. I have troubled you with my papers rather to give you pain than pleasure, notwithstanding your compliment which fays you take the trouble kindly: fuch is your generofity to your friends, that you take it kindly to be defired by them to do them a kindness; and you think it done to you, when they give you an oppor tunity to do it them. Wherefore you may be sure to be troubled with my letters out of intereft, if not kindness; fince mine to you will procure yours to me: fo that I write to you more for my own fake than yours; lefs to make you think I write well, than to learn from you to write better. Thus you fee interest in my kindness, which is like the friendship of the world, rather to make a friend than be a friend; but I am yours, as a true Plain-dealer. VOL. VII. LETTER XXIII. FROM MR. WYCHERLEY. April 11, 1710. IF F I can do part of my bufinefs at Shrewsbury in a fortnight's time (which I propofe to do) I will be foon after with you, and trouble you with my company for the remainder of the fummer: In the mean time I beg you to give yourself the pains of altering, or leaving out what you think fuperfluous in my papers, that I may endeavour to print fuch a number of them as you and I fhall think fit, about Michaelmas next. In order to which (my dear friend) I beg you to be fo kind to me, as to be fevere to them; that the critics may be lefs fo; for I had rather be condemned by my friend in private, than exposed to my foes in public, the critics, or common judges, who are made fuch by having been old offenders themfelves. Pray believe I have as much faith in your friendship and fincerity, as I have deference to your judgment; and as the best mark of a friend is telling his friend his faults in private, fo the next is concealing them from the public, till they are fit to appear. In the mean time I am not a little fenfible of the great kindness you do me, in the trouble you take for me, in putting my Rhymes in tune, fince good founds fet off often ill fenfe, as the Italian fongs, whose |