glowing under the climate that animated him: you may see his images rising more boldly about you, in the very scenes of his story and action; you may lay the immortal work on some broken column of a Hero's sepulchre; and read the fall of Troy in the shade of a Trojan ruin. But if, to visit the tomb of so many Heroes, you have not the heart to pass over that sea where once a lover perished; you may at least, at ease, in your own window, contemplate the fields of Asia, in such a dim and remote prospect, as you have of Homer in my translation.

I send you therefore with this, the third volume of the Iliad, and as many other things as fill a wooden box, directed to Mr. Wortley. Among the rest, you have all I am worth, that is, my works : there are few things in them but what you have already seen, except the Epistle of Eloisa to Abelard, in which you will find one passage, that I cannot tell whether to wish you should understand, or not.

For the news in London, I'll sum it up in short; we have Masquerades at the Theatre in the Haymarket, of Mr. Heideker's institution; they are very frequent, yet the adventures are not so numerous but that of my Lady Mohun still makes the chief figure. Her marriage to young Mordant, and all its circumstances, I suppose you'll have from Lady Rich or Miss Griffith. The political state is under great divisions, the parties of Walpole and Stanhope as violent as Whig and Tory. The K. and P. continue two names, there is nothing like a coalition, but at the Masquerade; however the Princess is a dissenter

from it, and has a very small party in so unmodish a separation.

The last I received from your hands was from Peterwaradin; it gave me the joy of thinking you in good health and humour: one or two expressions in it are too generous ever to be forgotten by me. I writ a very melancholy one just before, which was sent to Mr. Stanyan, to be forwarded through Hungary. It would have informed you how meanly I thought of the pleasures of Italy, without the qualification of your company, and that mere statues and pictures are not more cold to me, than I to them. I have had but four of your letters; I have sent several, and I wish I knew how many you have received. For God's sake, Madam, send to me as often as you can; in the dependance that there is no man breathing more constantly, or more anxiously mindful of you. Tell me that you are well, tell me that your little son is well, tell me that your very dog (if you have one) is well. Defraud me of no one thing that pleases you for whatever that is, it will please me better than any thing else can do.

I am always yours.

LETTER XIII.

TO THE SAME.

IF you must go from us, I wish at least you might pass to your banishment by the most pleasant way;

might all your road be roses and myrtles, and a thousand objects rise around you, agreeable enough to make England less desirable to you. I am glad, Madam, your native country uses you so well as to justify your regret for it: it is not for me to talk of it with tears in my eyes; I can never think that place my country, where I cannot call a foot of paternal earth my own. Indeed it may seem some alleviation, that when the wisest thing I can do is to leave my country, that which was most agreeable in it should be taken from thence beforehand. I could overtake you with pleasure in Italy (if you took that way), and make that tour in your company. Every reasonable entertainment and beautiful view would be doubly instructive when you talked of it. I should at least attend you to the sea-coast, and cast a last look after the sails that transported you, if I liked Italy enough to reside in it. But I believe, I should be as uneasy in a country where I saw others persecuted by the rogues of my own religion, as where I was so myself by those of yours. And it is not impossible but I might run into Turkey in search of liberty; for who would not rather live a free man among a nation of slaves, than a slave among a nation of free men?

In good earnest, if I knew your motions towards Italy (on the supposition you go that course) and your exact time, I verily think I should be once more happy in a sight of you, next spring. I'll conclude with a wish, God send you with us, or me with you.

By what I have seen of Mons. Rousseau's works,

I should envy you his conversation. But I am sure envy him yours.

I

Mr. Addison has not had one Epithalamium that I can hear of, and must even be reduced, like a poorer and a better poet, Spenser, to make his own.

Mr. Congreve is entirely yours, and has writ twice to you; he is not in town, but well; I am in great health, and sit up all night; a just reward for a fever I just come out of, that kept me in bed seven days.

How may I send a large bundle to you?

I beg you will put dates to your letters; they are not long enough.

I might be dead, or you in Yorkshire, for any thing that I am the better for your being in Town; I have been sick ever since I saw you last, and have now a swelled face, and very bad; nothing will do me so much good as the sight of dear Lady Mary: when you come this way let me see you, for indeed I love you.

[We find by Letter xix. to Dr. Atterbury (p. 109 of this volume), that the Dutchess of Buckinghamshire would have engaged Mr. Pope to draw her husband's character. But though he refused this office, yet in his Epistle, on the Character of Women, these lines,

To heirs unknown descends th' unguarded store,
Or wanders, heav'n-directed, to the poor",

are supposed to mark her out in such a manner as not to be mistaken for another; and having said of himself that he held a lie in prose and verse to be the same: all this together gave a handle to his enemies, since his death, to publish the following paper (entitled, The Character of Katharine, etc.) as written by him. On which account (in vindication of the deceased poet) we have subjoined to it a letter to a friend, that will let the reader fully into the history of the writing and publication of this extraordinary CHARACTER.] W.

These two lines are in the character of Atossa, who was the Dutchess of Marlborough, and not Buckingham.