would come in, as ill-usage went out. While you live under a kind of perpetual dejection and oppression, nothing at all belongs to you, not your own Humour nor your own Sense. You can't conceive how much you would find resolution rise, and cheerfulness grow upon you, if you'd once try to live independent for two or three months. I never think tenderly of you but this comes across me, and therefore excuse my repeating it, for whenever I do not, I dissemble half that I think of you. Adieu, pray write, and be particular about your health. LETTER XXVIII3. YOUR letter dated at nine o'clock on Tuesday (night, I suppose) has sunk me quite. Yesterday I hoped; and yesterday I sent you a line or two for our poor friend Gay, enclosed in a few words to you; about twelve or one o'clock you should have had it. I am troubled about that, though the present cause of our trouble be so much greater. Indeed I want a friend, to help me to bear it better. We want each other. I bear a hearty share with Mrs. Howard, who has lost a man of a most honest heart; so honest an one, that I wish her Master had none less honest about him. The world after all is a little pitiful thing; not performing any one pro Mr. Gay's death, which happened in Nov. 1732, at the Duke of Queensberry's house in London, aged 46. mise it makes us, for the future, and every day taking away and annulling the joys of the past. Let us comfort one another, and if possible, study to add as much more friendship to each other, as death has deprived us of in him: I promise you more and more of mine, which will be the way to deserve more and more of yours. I purposely avoid saying more. The subject is beyond writing upon, beyond cure or ease by reason or reflection, beyond all but one thought, that it is the will of God. So will the death of my mother be! which now I tremble at, now resign to, now bring close to me, now set farther off: every day alters, turns me about, and confuses my whole frame of mind. Her dangerous distemper is again returned, her fever coming onward again, though less in pain; for which last however I thank God. I am unfeignedly tired of the world, and receive nothing to be called a Pleasure in it, equivalent to countervail either the death of one I have so long lived with, or of one I have so long lived for. I have nothing left but to turn my thoughts to one comfort; the last we usually think of, though the only one we should in wisdom depend upon, in such a disappointing place as this. I sit in her room, and she is always present before me, but when I sleep. I wonder I am so well: I have shed many tears, but now I weep at nothing. I would above all things see you, and think it would comfort you to see me so equal-tempered and so quiet. But pray dine here; you may, and she know nothing of it, for she dozes much, and we tell her of no earthly thing, lest it run in her mind, which often trifles have done. If Mr. Bethel had time, I wish he were your companion hither. Be as much as you can with each other: be assured I love you both, and be farther assured, that friendship will increase as I live on. "SIR, LETTER XXIX. TR MR. CHRISTOPHER PITT. Twitenham, near Hampton Court, "I RECEIVED a Letter from you with satisfaction, having long been desirous of any occasion of testifying my regard for you, and particularly of acknowedging the pleasure your version of Vida's Poetick had afforded me. I had it not indeed from your Bookseller, but read it with eagerness, & think it both a correct, and a spirited translation. I am pleased to have been (as you tell me) y occasion of y' undertaking that work: that is some sort of merit ; & if I have any in me, it really consists in an earnest desire to promote & produce, as far as I can, that of others. But as to my being y publisher, or any way concern'd in reviewing or recommending of Lintot's Miscellany, it is what I never did in my life; tho' He (like y rest of his Tribe) make a very free use of my name. He has often reprinted my things, & so scurvily, that finding he was doing so again, I' corrected ye sheets as far as they went, of my own only: And being told by him, y' he had 2 or 3 copies of yours (wch you had formerly sent me (as he said) thro' his hands), I obliged him to write for y' consent, before he made use of 'em. This was all: y' second book he has just now delivered to me, y Inscription of wch to myself I will take care he shall leave out, & either return y rest of your verses to him, or not, as you shall like best. I am obliged to you, S', for expressing a much higher opinion of me than I know I deserve. The freedom with wch you write is yet what obliges and pleases me more; & it is with sincerity that I say, I wd rather be thought by every ingenious man in ye world, his servant, than his rival. "I am very much yours, "A. POPE." N. B. In a Letter from Mr. Spence to Mr. Pitt, dated Twickenham August 2, 1728, is the following Postscript: "Sir, I take this opportunity of assuring you, you have at the place from whence this Letter is dated, a friend, and servant, "A. POPE." 5 Our Author's mode of spelling is minutely copied in this Letter. LETTER XXX. TO HUGH BETHEL, ESQ. July 12, 1723. I ASSURE you unfeignedly any memorial of your good-nature and friendliness is most welcome to me, who knew those tenders of affection from you are not like the common traffic of compliments and professions, which most people only give that they may receive; and is at best a commerce of Vanity, if not of Falsehood. I am happy in not immediately wanting the sort of good offices you offer; but if I did want them, I should think myself unhappy in receiving them at your hands: this really is some compliment, for I would rather most men did me a small injury, than a kindness. I know your humanity, and, allow me to say, I love and value you for it: 'tis a much better ground of love and value, than all the qualities I see the world so fond of: they generally admire in the wrong place, and generally most admire the things they don't comprehend, or the things they can never be the better for. Very few can receive pleasure or advantage from wit which they seldom taste, or learning which they seldom understand, much less from the quality, high birth, or shining circumstances, of those to whom they profess esteem, and who will always remember how much they are their inferiors. But humanity and sociable virtues are what every creature wants every day, and still wants more the longer he lives, and most the very |