I

LETTER XXVI.

May 2, 1710.

AM forry you perfist to take ill my not accepting your invitation, and to find (if I mistake not) your exception not unmixed with fome fufpicion. Be certain I fhall most carefully obferve your request, not to cross over, or deface the copy of your papers for the future, and only to mark in the margin the Repetitions. But as this can ferve no further than to get rid of those repetitions, and no way rectify the Method nor connect the Matter, nor improve the Poetry in expreffion or numbers, without further blotting, adding, and altering; fo it really is my opinion and defire, that you should take your papers my hands into your own, and that no alterations may be made but when both of us are prefent; when you may be fatisfied with every blot, as well as every addition, and nothing be put upon the papers but what you shall give your own fanction and affent to, at the fame time.

out of

Do not be fo unjuft, as to imagine from hence that I would decline any part of this tafk; on the contrary you know, I have been at the pains of transcribing some pieces, at once to comply with your defire of not defacing the copy, and yet to lofe no time in proceeding upon the correction. I will go on the fame way, if you please; though truly it is (as I have

often

often told you) my fincere opinion, that the greater part would make a much better figure as Single Maxims and reflections in profe, after the manner of your favourite Rochefoucault, than in verfe. And this, when nothing more is done but marking the repetitions in the margin, will be an easy task to proceed upon, notwithstanding the bad Memory you complain of. I am unfeignedly, dear Sir, Your, etc. A. POPE.

d

Mr. Wycherley lived five years after, to December 1715, but little progrefs was made in this defign, through his old age, and the increase of his infirmities. However, fome of the Verfes, which had been touched by Mr. P. with cccviii of these Maxims in Profe, were found among his papers, which having the misfortune to fall into the hands of a Mercenary, were published in 1728, in octavo, under the Title of the Pofthumous Works of William Wycherley, Efq.

POPE.

The finishing froke, after all the pains Pope had taken, of feriously advising his friend to turn his Poetry into Profe, was more than Wycherley could forgive. Such was the end of all his fine compliments, and difplay of affection! It was on this account, perhaps, he was hitched into the Effay on Criticifm. The whole tranfaction brings to our recollection the character and language of Triffotin, in the inimitable Comedy of Moliere, the "Femmes

Savans."

LETTERS

TO AND FROM

W. WALSH', ESQ.

From the Year 1705 to 1707.

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LETTER I.

MR. WALSH TO MR. WYCHERLEY.

b

April 20, 1705. RETURN you the papers you favoured me with, and had fent them to you yesterday morning, but that I thought to have brought them to you laft night myself. I have read them over feveral times with great fatisfaction. The Preface is very judicious and very learned; and the verfes very tender and easy. The Author feems to have a particular genius for that kind of poetry, and a judgment that much exceeds the years you told me he was of. He has taken

Of Abberley in Worcestershire, Gentleman of the Horse in Queen Anne's reign, Author of several beautiful pieces in Profe and Verfe, and in the opinion of Mr. Dryden (in his poftfcript to Virgil) the best critic of our nation in his time.

⚫ Mr. Pope's Paftorals.

POPE.

POPE.

taken very freely from the ancients, but what he has mixed of his own with theirs, is not inferior to what he has taken from them. 'Tis no flattery at all to fay, that Virgil had written nothing fo good at his age. I fhall take it as a favour if you will bring me acquainted with him and if he will give himself the trouble any morning to call at my house, I fhall be very glad to read the verses over with him, and give him my opinion of the particulars more largely than I can well do in this Letter. I am, Sir, etc.

I

LETTER II.

MR. WALSH TO MR. POPE.

June 24, 1706.

RECEIVED the favour of your letter, and fhall be very glad of the continuance of a correfpondence, by which I am like to be fo great a gainer. I hope when I have the happiness of seeing you again

in

• Sixteen.

POPE.

* Walsh, though a feeble and flimfey poet, yet from these Letters, and from the Effay on Paftoral, which he gave to Dryden, appears to have been a man of fome taste and literature, but of narrow ideas in Poetry. He feems to be the firft of our critics, that attended much to the Italian poets. We ought to esteem him for his early praife and encouragement of Pope, which perhaps contributed to determine Pope to devote himself to the ftudy of Poetry. The best of Walsh's poetry is a Parody on the Fourth Eclogue