LETTER XI. April 10, 1710. I HAD written to you fooner, but that I made fome fcruple of fending profane things to you in Holy Week *. Befides, our family would have been scandalized to see me write, who take it for granted I write nothing but ungodly verfes. I affure you I am looked upon in the neighbourhood for a very well-disposed perfon, no great Hunter indeed, but a great admirer of the noble sport, and only unhappy in my want of conftitution for that, and Drinking. They all fay 'tis a pity I am fo fickly, and I think 'tis pity they are fo healthy. But I fay nothing that may destroy their good opinion of me: I have not quoted one Latin Author fince I came down, but have learned without book a fong of Mr. Thomas Durfey's, who is your only Poet of tolerable reputation in this country. He makes all the merriment in our entertainments, and but for him, there would be fo miferable a dearth of catches, that, I fear, they would put either the Parfon or me upon making fome for 'em. Any man, of any quality, is heartily welcome to the best toping table of our gentry, who can roar out fome Rhapsodies of his works; fo that in the fame manner as it was faid of Homer to his detractors, What! dares any man fpeak against him who has given so many men to eat? (meaning the Rhapsodifts who lived by repeating his verses ;) thus may it be faid of Mr. Durfey to his detractors: Dares any one despise him who has made fo many men drink? Alas, Sir! this is a glory which neither you nor I must ever pretend to. Neither you with your Ovid, nor I with my Statius, can amufe a board of justices and extraordinary 'fquires, or gain one hum of approbation, or laugh of admiration. These Things (they would say) are too ftudious, they may do well enough with fuch as love reading, but give us your ancient Poet Mr. Durfey*! 'Tis mortifying enough, it must be confeffed; but, however, let us proceed in the way that Nature has directed us-Multi multa fcient, fed nemo omnia, as is faid in the almanack. Let us communicate our works for our mutual comfort: send me elegies, and you fhall not want heroics. At prefent, I have only these arguments in profe to the Thebaid, which you claim by promife, as I do your Translation of Pars me Sulmo tenet,-and the Ring; the rest I hope for as foon as you can conveniently transcribe them, and whatsoever orders you are pleased to give me shall be punctually obeyed by Your, etc. * He was every summer invited to a fishing-party at Mr. Jones's of Ramsbury, a man of confiderable property in Wiltshire. Harte told me his friend Fenton alluded to this vifit in his elegant Epiftle to Lambard: By long experience, Durfey may, no doubt, WARTON, LETTER XII. May 10, 1710. I HAD not fo long omitted to express my acknowledgments to you for fo much good-nature and friendship as you lately fhewed me; but that I am but just returned to my own hermitage, from Mr. C's, who has done me fo many favours, that I am almost inclined to think my friends infect one another, and that your converfation with him has made him as obliging to me as yourself. I can affure you, he has a fincere respect for you, and this, I believe, he has partly contracted from me, who am too full of you not to overflow upon those I converse with. But I muft now be contented to converse only with the dead of this world; that is to fay, the dull and obfcure, every way obscure, in their intellects as well as their perfons; or elfe have recourse to the living dead, the old authors with whom you are fo well acquainted, even from Virgil down to Aulus Gellius, whom I do not think a critic by any means to be compared to Mr. Dennis : and I must declare pofitively to you, that I will perfift in this opinion, till you become a little more civil to Atticus. Who could have imagined, that he, who had escaped all the misfortunes of his time, unhurt even by the profcriptions of Antony and Auguftus, fhould in thefe days find an enemy more fevere I 2 severe and barbarous than thofe tyrants? and that enemy the gentlest too, the best natured of mortals, Mr. Cromwell, whom I must in this compare once more to Auguftus; who feemed not more unlike himself in the feverity of one part of his life and the clemency of the other, than you. I leave you to reflect on this, and hope that time (which mollifies rocks, and of stiff things makes limber) will turn a refolute critic to a gentle reader; and instead of this pofitive, tremendous new-fashioned Mr. Cromwell, reftore unto us our old acquaintance, the soft, beneficent, and courteous Mr. Cromwell. I expect much, towards the civilizing of you in your critical capacity, from the innocent air and tranquillity of our Forest, when you do me the favour to vifit it. In the mean time, it would do well by way of preparative, if you would duly and conftantly every morning read over a paftoral of Theocritus or Virgil; and let the lady Isabella put your Macrobius and Aulus Gellius fomewhere out of your way, for a month or fo. Who knows but travelling and long airing in an open field, may contribute more fuccessfully to the cooling a critic's feverity, than it did to the affuaging of Mr. Cheek's anger of old? In these fields, you will be fecure of finding no enemy, but the most faithful and affectionate of your friends, etc. LETTER XIII. May 17, 1710. A n FTER I had recovered from a dangerous illness, which was first contracted in town about a fortnight after my coming hither, I troubled you with a letter, and paper inclosed, which you had been fo obliging as to desire a fight of when last I saw you, promifing me in return fome tranflations of yours from Ovid. Since when I have not had a fyllable from your hands, fo that 'tis to be feared that though I have escaped death, I have not oblivion. I fhould at least have expected you to have finished that elegy upon me, which you told me you was upon the point of beginning when I was fick in London; if you will but do fo much for me firft, I will give you leave to forget me afterwards; and for my own part will die at difcretion, and at my leifure. But I fear I must be forced, like many learned authors, to write my own epitaph, if I would be remembered at all. Monfiur de la Fontaine's would fit me to a hair, but it is a kind of facrilege (do you think it is not?) to steal epitaphs. In my prefent living dead condition nothing would be properer than Oblitufque meorum, oblivifcendus et illis, but that unluckily I can't forget my " Verfes on Silence, in imitation of the Earl of Rochefter's poem on Nothing; done at fourteen years old. POPE. |