LETTER IV.

May 1, 1720.

YOU'LL think me very full of myself, when after long filence (which however, to say truth, has rather been employed to contemplate of you, than to forget you) I begin to talk of my own works. I find it is in the finishing a book, as in concluding a feffion of Parliament, one always thinks it will be very foon, and finds it very late. unlooked-for incidents to retard the

There are many clearing any pub

lic account, and fo I fee it is in mine. I have plagued myself, like great minifters, with undertaking too much for one man; and with a defire of doing more than was expected from me, have done lefs than I ought.

For having defigned four very laborious, and uncommon fort of Indexes to Homer, I'm forced, for want of time, to publifh two only: the design of which you will own to be pretty, though far from being fully executed. I've also been obliged to leave unfinished in my desk the heads of two Effays, one on the Theology and Morality of Homer, and another on the Oratory of Homer and Virgil. So they must wait for future editions, or perifh: and (one way or other, no great matter which) dabit Deus his quoque finem. I think of you every day, I affure you, even without fuch good memorials of you as your fifters,

with whom I sometimes talk of you, and find it one of the most agreeable of all fubjects to them. My Lord Digby must be perpetually remembered by all who ever knew him, or knew his children. There needs no more than acquaintance with your family, to make all elder* fons wifh they had fathers to their lives end.

I can't touch upon the subject of filial, love, without putting you in mind of an old woman, who has a fincere, hearty, old-fashioned respect for you, and conftantly blames her fon for not having writ to you oftener to tell you fo.

I very much wish (but what fignifies my wishing? My Lady Scudamore † wishes, your fifters wifh) that you were with us, to compare the beautiful contrast this season affords us, of the town and the country. No ideas you could form in the winter can make you imagine what Twickenham is (and what your friend Mr. Johnson of Twickenham is) in this warmer feafon. Our river glitters beneath an unclouded fun, at the fame time that its banks retain the verdure of fhowers our gardens are offering their firft nosegays; our trees, like new acquaintance brought happily together, are ftretching their arms to meet

each

* The elder fon dying in 1717, Robert was now the heir-apparent to the title and property. Can one believe but that this was written with the fame views in the Author, as have been mentioned in a Note to the preceding Letter?

Lady Scudamore, I apprehend, had a houfe at Twickenham, where Digby's fifters fometimes refided.

each other, and growing nearer and nearer every hour; the birds are paying their thanksgiving fongs for the new habitations I have made them: my building rises high enough to attract the eye and curiosity of the paffenger from the river, where, upon beholding a mixture of beauty and ruin, he enquires what house is falling, or what church is rifing? So little taste have our common Tritons of Vitruvius; whatever delight the poetical gods of the river may take, in reflecting on their streams, my Tuscan porticos, or Ionic pilafters.

But (to defcend from all this pomp of style) the beft account of what I am building, is, that it will afford me a few pleasant rooms for fuch a friend as yourself, or a cool fituation for an hour or two for Lady Scudamore, when fhe will do me the honour (at this public house on the road) to drink her own cydert.

The moment I am writing this, I am furprized with the account of the death of a friend of mine; which makes all I have here been talking of, a mere jeft! Buildings, gardens, writings, pleasures, works of whatever stuff man can raise! None of them (God knows)

In the British Mufeum, the various defigns and elevations, by his own hand, on the backs of Letters, may be feen.

The name Scudamore is well known in the annals of Cyder; an excellent apple being ftill called by that name, which is mentioned with due honour in Phillips's Poem. This may appear infignificant; but it illuftrates Pope's meaning, which every one may not understand.

The death, probably, of Sir Samuel Garth.

knows) capable of advantaging a creature that is mortal, or of fatisfying a foul that is immortal! Dear

Sir,

LETTER V.

FROM MR. DIGBY.

I am, etc.

May 21, 1720.

YOUR letter, which I had two posts ago, was very

medicinal to me; and I heartily thank you for the relief it gave me. I was fick of the thoughts of my not having in all this time given you any testimony of the affection I owe you, and which I as constantly indeed feel as I think of you. This indeed was a troublefome ill to me, till, after reading your letter, I found it was a moft idle weak imagination to think I could fo offend you. Of all the impreffions you have made upon me, I never received any greater joy than this of your abundant good-nature, which bids me be affured of fome fhare of your affections.

with

I had many other pleasures from your letter; that your mother remembers me, is a very fincere joy to

me:

With all due respect for Mr. Digby, I cannot help thinking his Letter as fimple, as, evidently copying Pope, it is laboured. Yet it feems written from the heart: he certainly felt what he fays; it is dictated by truth and fincerity, though it appears, at firft view, all conceit and affectation.

me: I cannot but reflect how alike you are; from the time you do any one a favour, you think yourselves obliged as those that have received one. This is indeed an old-fashioned refpect, hardly to be found out of your house. I have great hopes, however, to see many old-fashioned virtues revive, fince you have made our age in love with Homer; I heartily with you, who are as good a citizen as a poet, the joy of feeing a reformation from your works. I am in doubt whether I should congratulate your having finished Homer, while the two effays you mention are not completed; but if you expect no great trouble from finishing thefe, I heartily rejoice with you.

I have fome faint notion of the beauties of Twick enham from what I here fee round me. The verdure of fhowers is poured upon every tree and field about us; the gardens unfold variety of colours to the eye every morning; the hedges breath is beyond all perfume, and the fong of birds we hear as well as you. But though I hear and fee all this, yet I think they would delight me more if you was here. I found the want of thefe at Twickenham while I was there with you, by which I guess what an increase of charms it must now have. How kind is it in you to wifh me there, and how unfortunate are my circumstances that allow me not to vifit you? If I fee you, I must leave my father alone, and this uneafy thought would difappoint all my propofed pleafures; the fame circumftances will prevent my profpect of many happy hours