I

LETTER XXXII.

TO MR. JERVAS.

No date.

BEG you to let me know if you have any thoughts of your Devonshire journey this fummer. If you have, I will ftay for you, and let Mr. Fortescue and Gay travel together. This refolution must be made with some hafte, because they go next week, and I shall want time to prepare. I thought Mrs. Cecil had receipts before. The names of Lady Ranelagh and Lady Cavendish were inferted long fince in the lift.

You may tell Mr. Rollinson, that Gay was not sure he should go to Lord Bolingbroke's when he came hither; or help him to fome excufe, for his neglect was fcandalous, and has given him much vexation of fpirit.

I should have been glad to have had the Report of the Committee, and have fince writ to Lintott for it. If the Whigs now fay, that B. is the hero of my preface, the Tories faid (you may remember) three years ago, that Cato was the hero of my poetry. It looks generous enough to be always on the fide of the diftreffed; and my patrons of the other party may expect great panegyrics from me when they come to

Receipts for fubfcriptions to the Iliad.

be

be impeached by the future party-rage of their opponents. To compliment those who are dead in law, is as much above the imputation of flattery, as Tickell fays it is, to compliment those who are really dead. And perhaps too there is as much vanity in my praifing Bolingbroke, as in his praifing Halifax. No people in the world are fo apt to give themselves airs as authors.

I have received the report, but have not yet had time to read any of it. I have gone through the 5th, 6th, and 7th books, except a small part of the latter end of the 6th.-Pray tell me if you hear any thing faid about Mr. Tickell's, or my tranflation, if the town be not too much taken up with great affairs, to notice of either.

take any

I hold the refolution I told you in my laft, of feeing you if you cannot take a trip hither before I go. But I would fain flatter myself fo far as to fancy we might travel together. Pray give me a line by Saturday's post.

I am at all times, and in all reigns, whatever be the fate of the world, or of myself, fincerely and affectionately, Dear Mr. JERVAS,

All here most truly your fervants.

Yours, etc.

I

SIR,

LETTER XXXIII.

TO JABEZ HUGHES, ESQ.

HAVE read over again your brother's play *, with more concern and forrow than I ever felt in the reading any tragedy.

The real lofs of a good man may be called a diftress to the world, and ought to affect us more than any feigned or ancient diftrefs, how finely drawn foever.

I am glad of an occafion to give you, under my hand, this teftimony, both how excellent I think this work to be, and how excellent I thought the author t. I am, etc.

* The Siege of Damafcus, written by John Hughes, Efq. who died Feb. 17, 1719, the firt night of its reprefentation.

WARTON.

"This Letter to Mr. Hughes," fays Dr. Warton, "with the excellent character of his deceased brother, being fo contradictory to one addreffed to Dean Swift, in which he says, The author of the Siege of Damafcus was of the class of the mediocribus in profe and verfe, made it neceffary to fink the first.”

But Dr. Warton thinks much higher of Pope's opinion of Hughes, than can be justified by a perufal of this Letter, which appears to me to be equivocal. The Letter, however, as here given, is but a part of what Pope wrote to Mr. Jabez Hughes, and was probably taken from Mr. Duncombe's Preface to Hughes's Works, 2 vols. 1735. In Hughes's Correfpondence, published by Mr. Duncombe in 1772, we have the entire Letter, which is dated Feb. 26, 1719-20. I fhall fupply what is wanting in the

above.

LETTER. XXXIV.

TO MR. DENNIS.

I

SIR,

May 3, 1721.

CALLED to receive the two books of your Letters * from Mr. Congreve, and have left with him the little money I am in your debt. debt.

I look

I look upon myself

to

Thefe Books were intitled, Original Letters, familiar, moral, and critical. In two volumes 8vo. WARTON.

"SIR,

"I cannot omit the acknowledgment I really think I owe to your great civility, efpecially at fo melancholy and affecting a moment as that of your worthy brother's death must have been to you. Indeed, even his common acquaintance must have known enough of him to regret his lofs; and I moft heartily condole with you upon it. I believe, I am further obliged to you for his Play, which I received yesterday, and read over again with more concern," &c. &c.

When Mr. Duncombe was about to print Hughes's Works, he applied for leave to infert this teftimony in the Memoirs to be prefixed. Mr. Pope's Anfwer is as follows:

"SIR,

Twit'nam, Nov. 5, 1734.

"I am extremely willing to bear any teftimony of my real regard for Mr. Hughes; and therefore what you mention of my Letter to his brother, after his death, will be a greater inftance of the fincerity with which it was given: it is perfectly at your service. I thank you for the tenderness with which you deal in this matter toward me; and I efteem you for that which you shew to the memory of your kinfman. I doubt not but you will discharge it in a becoming manner, and am, Sir, &c.”

to be much more fo, for the "omiffions you have "been pleased to make in those Letters in my favour, "and fincerely join with you in the defire, that not "the least traces may remain of that difference between us, which indeed I AM SORRY FOR." You may therefore believe me, without either ceremony or falfeness, Sir,

Your, etc.

The other part of Dr. Warton's note appears to be founded on two mistakes, which are rather fingular in him, who was the Editor of Pope, and added or left out what he pleased. In the first place there is no letter funk at all: the one he alludes to appeared in Vol. IX, and is numbered 76, as in the prefent edition; and fecondly, the opinion that Hughes fhould be ranked among the mediocribus was not Pope's, but Swift's. It is true, that Pope affented to it, but in a manner which does not appear to me to contrast very ftrongly with his former fentiments. After fifteen years, the fenfations occafioned by the fingular circumftance of Hughes having expired on the firft night his Tragedy was acted, may be supposed to yield to a calm examination of his whole Works then published, some of which, it is probable, Pope had never before feen, or known to be his. It may be neceffary to attempt to vindicate Pope's fincerity in this inftance.

C.