you good-nature too. As for my green effays *, if find any pleasure in them, it must be such as a man naturally takes in obferving the firft fhoots and buddings of a tree which he has raised himself; and 'tis impoffible they should be esteemed any otherwise, than as we value fruits for being early, which nevertheless are the most infipid, and the worst of the year. In a word, I must blame you for treating me with so much compliment, which is at best but the fmoke of friendship. I neither write nor converse with you, to gain your praise, but your affection. Be fo much my friend as to appear my enemy, and tell me my faults, if not as a young man, at least as an unexperienced Writer. I am, &c. YOUR LETTER IV. FROM MR. WYCHERLEY. March 29, 1705. OUR letter of the twenty-fifth of March I have received, which was more welcome to me than any thing could be out of the country, though it were one's rent due that day; and I can find no fault with it, but that it charges me with want of fincerity, or juftice, for giving you your due; who should not let your modefty be fo unjust to your merit, * His Paftorals, written at fixteen years of age. POPE. merit, as to reject what is due to it, and call that compliment, which is fo fhort of your desert, that it is rather degrading than exalting you. But if compliment be the fmoke only of friendship, (as you fay,) however, you must allow there is no fmoke.but there is some fire; and as the facrifice of incenfe offered to the Gods would not have been half so sweet to others, if it had not been for its smoke; so friendfhip, like love, cannot be without fome incenfe, to perfume the name it would praise and immortalize. But fince you fay you do not write to me to gain my praise, but my affection, pray how is it poffible to have the one without the other? we must admire before we love. You affirm, you would have me fo much your friend as to appear your enemy, and find out your faults rather than your perfections; but (my friend) that would be fo hard to do, that I, who love no difficulties, can't be perfuaded to it. Befides, the vanity of a fcribler is fuch, that he will never part with his own judgment to gratify another's; especially when he must take pains to do it: and though I am proud to be of your opinion, when you talk of any thing or man but yourself, I cannot fuffer you to murder your fame with your own hand, without oppofing you; especially when you fay your last letter is the worst (fince the longest) you have favoured me with; which I therefore think the beft; as the longest life (if a good one) is the best; as it yields the more variety, and is the more exemplary; as a chearful chearful fummer's day, though longer than a dull one in the winter, is lefs tedious and more entertaining. Therefore let but your friendship be like letter, as lafting as it is agreeable, and it can never be tedious, but more acceptable and obliging to your LETTER V. FROM MR. WYCHERLEY. Your, etc. April 7, 1705. I HAVE received your's of the fifth, wherein your modesty refuses the just praises I give you, by which you lay claim to more, as a bishop gains his bishopric by saying he will not episcopate; but I must confefs, whilst I difplease you by commending you, I please myself; juft as incenfe is fweeter to the offerer than the deity to whom 'tis offered, by his being fo much above it: For indeed every man partakes of the praise he gives, when it is so justly given. As to my enquiry after your intrigues with the Muses, you may allow me to make it, fince no old man can give fo young, fo great, and able a favourite of theirs, jealousy. I am, in my enquiry, like old Sir Bernard Gafcoign, who used to say, that when he was grown too old to have his vifits admitted alone by the ladies, he always took along with him a young man man to ensure his welcome to them: for had he come alone he had been rejected, only because his vifits were not scandalous to them. So I am (like an old rook, who is ruined by gaming) forced to live on the good fortune of the pufhing young men, whose fancies are fo vigorous that they enfure their success in their adventures with the Muses, by their strength of imagination. Your papers are fafe in my cuftody (you may be fure) from any one's theft but my own; for 'tis as dangerous to trust a scribler with your wit, as a gamester with the cuftody of your money.—If you happen to come to town, you will make it more difficult for me to leave it, who am Your, etc. LETTER VI. April 30, 1705. I CANNOT contend with you: You must give me leave at once to wave all your compliments, and to collect only this in general from them, that your defign is to encourage me. But I feparate from all the rest that paragraph or two, in which you make me fo warm an offer of your friendship. Were I poffeffed of that, it would put an end to all those fpeeches with which you now make me blush; and change them to wholesome advices, and free fenti ments, * ments, which might make me wifer and happier. I know 'tis the general opinion, that friendship is best contracted betwixt perfons of equal age; but I have so much intereft to be of another mind, that you must pardon me if I cannot forbear telling you a few notions of mine in oppofition to that opinion. In the first place 'tis obfervable, that the love we bear to our friends, is generally caused by our finding the fame difpofitions in them, which we feel in ourfelves. This is but felf-love at the bottom : whereas the affection betwixt people of different ages cannot well be fo, the inclinations of fuch being commonly various. The friendship of two young men is often occafioned by love of pleasure or voluptuousness, each being defirous, for his own fake, of one to affift or encourage him in the courses he purfues; as that of two old men is frequently on the score of fome profit, lucre, or defign upon others. Now, as a young man, who is lefs acquainted with the ways of the world, has in all probability less of intereft; and an old man, who may be weary of himself, has, or fhould have, lefs of felf-love; fo the friendship between them is the more likely to be true, and unmixed with too much felf-regard. One may add to this, that fuch a friendship is of greater use and advantage to both; for the old man will grow gay and agreeable to please the young one; and the young man more difcreet and prudent by the help of * Lady Montagu, fays, Pope paid his court to old men, in hopes of legacies. VOL. VII. C the |