chair, which I demolished, and never spoke a word after. We went to supper, and a lady said, Miss G. looks prodigiously like a Tree. Every body agreed to it, and I had not curiofity to afk the meaning of that sprightly fancy: find it out, and let me know. Adieu, 'tis time to drefs, and begin the business of the day. LETTER VI. IN THE STYLE OF A LADY *. PRAY what is your opinion of Fate? For I must confefs I am one of those that believe in Fate and Predestination.—No, I can't go so far as that, but I own I am of opinion one's stars may incline, though not compel one; and that is a fort of free-will; for we may be able to resist inclination, but not compulfion. Don't you think they have got into the most prepofterous fashion this winter that ever was, of flouncing the petticoat fo very deep, that it looks like an entire coat of luteftring? It *In the ftyle of a Lady ? read Lady M. Montagu's Letters, and confefs how little this nonfenfe is like. We cannot now tell to whom these idle effufions of Pope's early days were written. The next Letter is evidently to Terela Blount; Pope certainly wished to mislead, when he fays, in his own edition, all thefe Letters, as far as the eleventh, were written to the fame Lady. It is a little cool indeed for this time of year, but then, my dear, you will allow it has an extreme clean, pretty look. Ay, fo has my muflin apron; but I would no chufe to make it a winter fuit of cloaths. Well now I'll fwear, child, you have put me in mind of a very pretty drefs; let me die if I don't think a muflin flounce, made very full, would give one a very agreeable Flirtation-air. Well, I fwear it would be charming! and I should like it of all things-Do you think there are any fuch things as Spirits? Do you believe there is any fuch place as the Elyfian Fields; O Gad, that would be charming! I wish I were to go to the Elyfian fields when I die, and then I fhould not care if I were to leave the world to-morrow: but is one to meet there with what one has loved moft in this world? Now you muft tell me this pofitively. To be fure you can, or what do I correfpond with you for, if you will not tell me all? you know I abominate Referve. LETTER VII. * Bath, 1714. YOU You are to understand, Madam, that my paffion for your fair felf and your fifter, has been divided with the moft wonderful regularity in the world. Even from my infancy I have been in love with one after the other of you, week by week, and my journey to Bath fell out in the three hundred feventy-fixth week of the reign of my fovereign Lady Sylvia. At the prefent writing hereof it is the three hundred eighty-ninth week of the reign of your moft ferene majefty, in whofe fervice I was lifted fome weeks before I beheld your fifter. This information will account for my writing to either of you hereafter, as either fhall happen to be queen-regent at that time. Pray tell your fifter, all the good qualities and vir tuous inclinations fhe has, never gave me fo much pleafure in her converfation, as that one vice of her obftinacy will give me mortification this month. Ratcliffe commands her to the Bath, and fhe refufes! indeed if I were in Berkshire I fhould honour her for this obftinacy, and magnify her no lefs for difobedience than we do the Barcelonians. But people change with the change of places (as we fee of late) and *To Terefa Blount. Pope's tenderness of Paffion feems here to be wavering between the two fifters; it was afterwards entirely fixed on Martha, and continued to his death. From an Original Published by Cadell & Davies, Strand, and the other Proprietors, May 1.1807. |