"before he made ufe of 'em. This was all: y' fe"cond book he has juft now delivered to me, yo

Inscription of wch to myself I will take care he shall "leave out, & either return y rest of your verses to

66

him, or not, as you fhall like beft. I am obliged to

you, S', for expreffing a much higher opinion of "me than I know I deserve. The freedom with wch

66 you write is yet what obliges and pleases me more; " & it is with fincerity that I fay, 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 affuring you, you "have at the place from whence this Letter is dated, a friend, and servant,

"A. POPE *."

* Our Author's mode of spelling is minutely copied in this Letter.

WARTON.

I

LETTER V.

TO HUGH BETHEL, ESQ.

July 12, 1723. ASSURE you unfeignedly any memorial of your good-nature and friendlinefs is most welcome to me, who knew thofe tenders of affection from you are not like the common traffic of compliments and profeffions, 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 fort of good offices you offer: but if I did want them, I should not think myself unhappy in receiving them at your hands: this really is fome compliment, for I would rather moft men did me a fmall injury, than a kindness. I know your humanity, and, allow me to fay, I love and value you for it 'tis a much better ground of love and value, than all the qualities I fee the world fo 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 feldom understand, much lefs from the quality, high birth, or fhining circumftances of those to whom they profefs efteem, and who will always remember how much they are their inferiors. But humanity and fociable virtues are

what

what every creature wants every day, and ftill wants more the longer he lives, and most the very moment he dies. It is ill travelling either in a ditch or on a terrace; we should walk in the common way, where others are continually paffing on the fame level, to make the journey of life fupportable by bearing one another company in the fame circumftances.-Let me know how I may convey over the Odysseys for your amusement in your journey, that you may compare your own travels with thofe of Ulyffes: I am fure yours are undertaken upon a more difinterested, and therefore a more heroic motive. Far be the omen from you, of returning as he did, alone, without faving a friend.

There is lately printed a book' wherein all human virtue is reduced to one teft, that of Truth, and branched out in every inftance of our duty to God and man. If you have not feen it, you muft, and I will fend it together with the Odyffey. The very women read it, and pretend to be charmed with that beauty which they generally think the leaft of. They make as much ado about truth, fince this book appeared, as they did about health when Dr. Cheyne's came out; and will doubtlefs be as conftant in the pursuit of one, as of the other. Adieu.

'Mr. Wollafton's excellent book of the Religion of Nature delineated. The Queen was fond of it, and that made the reading of it, and the talking of it, fashionable.

WARBURTON.

Pope also read it attentively; as appears by many paffages taken from it, in the Effay on Man.

WARTON.

LETTER VI.

TO THE SAME.

Auguft 9, 1726.

I

NEVER am unmindful of those I think fo well of as yourself; their number is not so great as to confound one's memory. Nor ought you to decline writing to me, upon an imagination, that I am much employed by other people. For though my house is like the house of a Patriarch of old, ftanding by the highway fide, and receiving all travellers, nevertheless I feldom go to bed without the reflection, that one's chief business is to be really at home: and I agree with you in your opinion of company, amusements, and all the filly things which mankind would fain make pleasures of, when in truth they are labour and forrow.

I condole with you on the death of your Relation, the E. of C. as on the fate of a mortal man. Efteem I never had for him, but concern and humanity I had the latter was due to the infirmity of his last period, though the former was not due to the triumphant and vain part of his courfe. He certainly knew himself beft at last, and knew beft the little value of others, whofe neglect of him, whom they fo grofsly followed and flattered in the former fcene of

his

*William, Earl of Cadogan, Viscount Cavefham. He died July 17, 1726.

C.

his life, fhewed them as worthlefs as they could imagine him to be, were he all that his worst enemies believed of him. For my own part, I am forry for his death, and wish he had lived long enough to fee so much of the faithleffnefs of the world, as to have been above the mad ambition of governing fuch wretches as he must have found it to be compofed of.

Though you could have no great value for this Great man, yet acquaintance itself, the custom of feeing the face, or entering under the roof, of one that walks along with us in the common way of the world, is enough to create a wish at least for his being above ground, and a degree of uneafinefs at his removal. 'Tis the lofs of an object familiar to us: I fhould hardly care to have an old poft pulled up, that I remembered ever fince I was a child. And add to this the reflection (in the case of fuch as were not the best of their Species) what their condition in another life may be, it is yet a more important motive for our concern and compaffion. To say the truth, either in the cafe of death or life, almost every body and every thing is a cause or object for humanity, even profperity itself, and health itself; so many weak, pitiful incidentals attend on them,

I am forry any relation of yours is ill, whoever it be, for you don't name the perfon. But I conclude it is one of those to whose houses, you tell me, you are going, for I know no invitation with you is fo ftrong as when any one is in diftrefs, or in want of