LETTER XII.

O&. 21, 1721.

YOUR YOUR very kind and obliging manner of enquir ing after me, among the first concerns of life, at your refufcitation, fhould have been fooner answered and acknowledged. I fincerely rejoice at your recovery from an illness which gave me less pain than it did you, only from my ignorance of it. I should have else been seriously and deeply afflicted, in the thought of your danger by a fever. I think it a fine and a natural thought, which I lately read in a letter of Montaigne's, published by P. Cofte*, giving an account of the laft words of an intimate friend of his :

Adieu, my friend! the pain I feel will foon be

over; but I grieve for that you are to feel, which "is to laft you for life."

I join with your family in giving God thanks for lending us a worthy man fomewhat longer. The comforts you receive from their attendance, put me in mind of what old Fletcher of Saltoune faid one day to me. "Alas, I have nothing to do but to die; "I am a poor individual; no creature to wish, or to "fear, for my life or death: 'Tis the only rea"fon

• Who

gave the best edition of Montaigne in 4to ever publifhed. He was for fome time a preceptor to the Earl of Shafts

Fury.

WARTON.

"fon I have to repent being a fingle man; now I

66

grow old, I am like a tree without a prop, and "without young trees to grow round me, for company and defence."

I hope the gout will foon go after the fever, and all evil things remove far from you. But pray tell me, when will you move towards us? If you had an interval to get hither, I care not what fixes you afterwards except the gout. Pray come and never ftir from us again. Do away your dirty acres, caft them to dirty people, such as in the Scripture-phrase poffefs the land. Shake off your earth like the noble animal in Milton;

The tawny lion, pawing to get free

His hinder parts, he fprings as broke from bonds,
And rampant shakes his brinded mane: The ounce,
The lizard, and the tyger, as the mole

Rifing, the crumbled earth above them threw

In hillocks.

But, I believe, Milton never thought these fine verfest of his fhould be applied to a man felling a parcel of dirty acres; though in the main, I think, it may have fome resemblance. For, God knows! this little space

of

Wishing him to difpofe of the houfe and cftate at MapleDurham; which, however, amidft the viciffitudes of old and refpectable families, is ftill in poffeffion of its early inheritors.

Warton fays, this is one of the few paffages he has ever quoted with approbation from Milton: but there are other places, in which he fpeaks with approbation, and even warmth, of Milton, though he certainly does not feem to have appreciated Milton's high poetic character.

(

of ground nourishes, buries, and confines us, as that of Eden did thefe creatures, till we can fhake it loose, at least in our affections and defires.

Believe, dear Sir, I truly love and value you: Let Mrs. Blount know that fhe is in the lift of my Memento, Domine, famulorum famularumque's, etc. My poor mother is far from well, declining; and I am watching over her, as we watch an expiring taper, that, even when it looks brightest, wastes fastest. I am (as you will fee from the whole air of this letter) not in the gayeft nor easiest humour, but always with fincerity,

Your, etc.

LETTER XIII.

June 27, 1723.

You may truly do me the justice to think no man is more your fincere well-wisher than myself, or more the fincere well-wisher of your whole family; with all which, I cannot deny but I have a mixture of envy to you all, for loving one another fo well; and for enjoying the fweets of that life, which can only be tafted by people of good-will.

They from all fhades the darkness can exclude,

And from a defert banifh folitude.

Torbay is a paradife, and a ftorm is but an amufement to fuch people. If you drink Tea upon a promontory that over-hangs the fea, it is preferable to an Affembly: And the whistling of the wind better mufic to contented and loving minds, than the Opera to the fpleenful, ambitious, difeafed, diftafted, and diftracted fouls which this world affords'; nay, this world affords no other. Happy they, who are banished from us! but happier they, who can banish themselves; or more properly banish the world from them!

Alas! I live at Twickenham !

I take that period to be very fublime, and to include more than a hundred sentences that might be writ to express distraction, hurry, multiplication of nothings, and all the fatiguing perpetual business of having no business to do. You will wonder I reckon tranflating the Odyffey as nothing. But whenever I think seriously (and of late I have met with fo many occafions of thinking seriously, that I begin never to think otherwise) I cannot but think these things very idle; as idle as if a beast of burden fhould go on jingling his bells, without bearing any thing valuable about him, or ever serving his master.

Life's vain amusements, amidft which we dwell;

Not weigh'd, or understood, by the grim God of Hell!

faid

*It is remarkable that Pope has used this image three or four times in his writings.

faid a heathen poet; as he is tranflated by a chriftian Bishop, who has, firft by his exhortations, and fince by his example, taught me to think as becomes a reasonable creature-but he is gone!

I remember I promised to write to you as foon as I fhould hear you were got home. You must look on this as the first day I have been myself, and pass over the mad interval un-imputed to me. How punctual a correfpondent I fhall henceforward be able or not able to be, God knows: But He knows, I fhall ever be a punctual and grateful friend, and all the good wishes of fuch an one will ever attend you.

γου

LETTER XIV.

Twickenham, June 2, 1725. ou fhew yourself a juft man and a friend in those gueffes and fuppofitions you make at the poffible reafons of my filence; every one of which is a true one. As to forgetfulness of you or yours, I affure you, the promifcuous converfations of the town ferve only to put me in mind of better, and more quiet, to be had in a corner of the world (undisturbed, innocent,

• Atterbury.

†This evidently alludes to the earnestnefs and fincerity of the Bishop in his religious life; and it is fufficient to prove what Pope really thought him, notwithstanding the unfupported calumny of Lord Chesterfield, refpecting his disbelief of the Bible.