LETTER IX.

FROM MR. WYCHERLEY.

Nov. 5, 1705.

YOURS of the 26th of October I have received, as I have always done yours, with no little satis faction, and am proud to discover by it, that you find fault with the fhortnefs of mine, which I think the best excuse for it: And though they (as you fay) who have most wit or money are most sparing of either; there are some who appear poor to be thought rich, and are poor, which is my cafe. I cannot but rejoice that you have undergone fo much discontent for want of my company: But if you have a mind to punish me for my fault (which I could not help) defer your coming to town, and you will do it effectually. But I know your charity always exceeds your revenge, so that I will not despair of seeing you, and, in return to your inviting me to your foreft, invite you to my foreft, the town; where the beafts that inhabit, tame or wild, of long ears or horns, purfue one another either out of love or hatred. You may have the pleasure to fee one pack of blood-hounds pursue another herd of brutes, to bring each other to their fall, which is their whole fport: Or if you affect a lefs bloody chace, you may fee a pack of spaniels, called lovers, in a hot pursuit of a two-legged vixen,

who only flies the whole loud pack to be fingled out by one dog, who runs mute to catch her up the fooner from the reft, as they are making a noise to the lofs of their game. In fine, this is the time for all forts of sport in the town, when thofe of the country cease; therefore leave your forests of beasts for ours of brutes, called men, who now in full cry (packed by the court or country) run down in the house of commons * a deferted horned beast of the Court, to the fatisfaction of their fpectators: Befides, (more for your diverfion,) you may fee not only the two great play-houfes of the nation, thofe of the lords and commons, in difpute with one another; but the two other play-houfes in high conteft, because the members of one house are removed up to t'other, as it is often done by the court for reafons of state. Infomuch that the lower houses, I mean the play-houses, are going to act tragedies on one another without doors, and the Sovereign is put to it (as it often happens in the other two houfes) to filence one or both, to keep peace between them. Now I have told you all the news of the town.

I am, etc.

* Perhaps he here alludes to the difmiffal, about this time, of Sir Nathan Wright, who had been Keeper of the Great Seal. For an account of the feuds of the two Theatres, that of Drury Lane, and that in Lincoln's Inn Fields, fee Cibber's very en. tertaining Life, vol. i.

LETTER X.

FROM MR. WYCHERLEY.

Feb. 5, 1705-6.

I

HAVE received

your

kind letter, with my paper1

to Mr. Dryden corrected. I own you have made more of it by making it lefs, as the Dutch are faid to burn half the fpices they bring home, to inhance the price of the remainder, so to be greater gainers by their lofs (which is indeed my cafe now). You have pruned my fading laurels of fome fuperfluous, faplefs, and dead branches, to make the remainder live the longer; thus, like your mafter Apollo, you are at once a poet and a physician.

Now, Sir, as to my impudent invitation of you to the town, your good nature was the first cause of my confident request; but excuse me, I muft (I fee) fay no more upon this subject, fince I find you a little too nice to be dealt freely with; though you have given me fome encouragement to hope, our friendship might be without fhyness, or criminal modesty; for a friend, like a mistress, though he is not to be mercenary, to be true, yet ought not to refuse a friend's kindness because it is fmall or trivial: I have told you (I think) what a Spanish lady faid to her

poor

The fame which was printed in the year 1717, in a miscellany of Bern. Lintot's, and in the pofthumous works of Mr. Wycherley. WARBURTON.

poor poetical gallant, that a Queen, if fhe had to do with a groom, would expect a mark of his kindness from him, though it were but his curry-comb. But you and I will dispute this matter when I am fo happy as to see you here; and perhaps it is the only dispute in which I might hope to have the better of

you.

Now, Sir, to make you another excufe for my boldness in inviting you to town, I defigned to leave with fome more of you my papers (fince these return fo much better out of your hands than they went from mine); for I intended (as I told you formerly) to spend a month or fix weeks this fummer, near you in the country. You may be affured there is nothing I defire so much, as an improvement of your friendship.

LETTER XI.

April 10, 17c6.

BY

y one of your's of the last month, you defire me to felect, if poffible, fome things from the " first volume of your Mifcellanies, which may be altered fo as to appear again. I doubted your meaning in this; whether it was to pick out the best of those verses (as those on the Idleness of business, on Igno

Printed in folio, in the year 1704.

rance,

РОРЕ.

rance, on Lazinefs, etc.) to make the method and numbers exact, and avoid repetitions? For though (upon reading them upon this occafion) I believe, they might receive fuch an alteration with advantage; yet they would not be changed fo much, but any one would know them for the fame at firft fight. Or if you mean to improve the worst pieces? which are such, as, to render them very good, would require great addition, and almoft the entire new writing of them. Or, laftly, if you mean the middle fort, as the Songs and Love-verfes? For these will need only to be shortened, to omit repetition; the words remaining very little different from what they were before. Pray let me know your mind in this, for I am utterly at a lofs. Yet I have tried what I could do to fome of the fongs, and the poems on Lazinefs, and Ignorance, but can't (even in my own partial judgment) think my alterations much to the purpose. So that I must needs defire you would apply your care wholly at present to those which are yet unpublished, of which there are more than enough to make a confiderable volume, of full as good ones, nay, I believe, of better than any in Vol. I. which I could wish you would defer, at least till you have finished these that are yet unprinted.

I send you a fample of fome few of these; namely, the verses to Mr. Waller in his old age; your new ones on the Duke of Marlborough, and two others, I have done all that. I thought could be of advantage

to