for juftice, time-ferving for fortitude, and luxury for temperance. Whatever you may fancy where you live in a ftate of ignorance, and fee nothing but quiet, religion, and good-humour, the cafe is juftas I tell you where people understand the world, and know how to live with credit and glory.

I wish that Heaven would open the eyes of men, and make them fenfible which of these is right; whether, upon a due conviction, we are to quit faction, and gaming, and high-feeding, and all manner of luxury, and to take to your country way? or you to leave prayers, and almsgiving, and reading, and exercise, and come into our measures? I wish (I fay) that this matter were as clear to all men, as it is to

Your affectionate, &c.

LETTER XVIII.

DEAR SIR,

April 21, 1726.

I

Have a great inclination to write to you, tho' I cannot by writing any more than I could by words, exprefs what part I bear in your fufferings. Nature and Efteem in you are join'd to aggravate your affliction: the latter I have in a degree equal even to yours, and a tye of friendship approaches near to the tenderness of nature: yet, God knows, no man

Mr. Digby died in the year 1726, and is buried in the church of Sherburne in Dorsetshire, with an Epitaph written by the Author.

living is lefs fit to comfort you, as no man is more deeply fenfible than myfelf of the greatnefs of the lofs. That very virtue, which fecures his prefent ftate from all the forrows incident to ours, does but aggrandife our fenfation of its being remov'd from our fight, from our affection, and from our imitation; for the friendship and fociety of good Men does not only make us happier, but it makes us better. Their Death does but complete their felicity before our own, who probably are not yet arrived to that degree of perfection which merits an immediate reward. That your dear brother and my dear friend was fo, I take his very removal to be a proof; Providence would certainly lend virtuous men to a world that fo much wants them, as long as in its juftice to them it could fpare them to us. May my foul be with those who have meant well, and have acted well to that meaning! and, I doubt not, if this prayer be granted, I shall be with him. Let us preferve his memory in the way he would beft like, by recollecting what his behaviour would have been, in every incident of our lives to come, and doing in each just as we think he would have done; fo we fhall have him always before our eyes, and in our minds, and (what is more) in our lives and manners. I hope when we shall meet him next, we shall be more of a piece with him, and confequently not to be evermore feparated from him. I will add but one word that relates to what remains of yourself and me, fince fo valued a part of us is

gone; it is to beg you to accept, as yours by inhe ritance, of the vacancy he has left in a heart, which (while he could fill it with fuch hopes, wishes and affections for him as fuited a mortal creature) was truly and warmly his; and fhall (I affure you in the fincerity of forrow for my own lofs) be faithfully at your fervice while I continue to love his memory, that is, while I continue to be myself.

4

LETTERS

TO AND FROM

Dr. ATTERBURY,

Bishop of ROCHESTER,

From 1716 to 1723.

LETTER I.

The Bishop of ROCHESTER to Mr. POPE.

I

*

Decemb. 1716.

Return your Preface, which I have read twice

with pleasure. The modesty and good fenfe there is in it, muft please every one that reads it: And fince there is nothing that can offend, I fee not why you should balance a moment about printing it-always provided, that there is nothing faid there which you may have occafion to unfay hereafter: of which you yourself are the best and the only judge.

*The general preface to Mr. Pope's Poems, first printed 1717, the year after the date of this letter.

:

This is my fincere opinion, which I give, because you afk it and which I would not give tho' asked, but to a man I value as much as I do you; being fenfible how improper it is, on many accounts, for me to interpofe in things of this nature; which I never understood well, and now understand fomewhat less than ever I did. But I can deny you nothing; especially fince you have had the goodness often, and patiently, to hear what I have said against rhyme, and in behalf of blank verfe; with little difcretion perhaps, but, I am fure, without the least prejudice being myfelf equally incapable of writing well in either of those ways, and leaning therefore to neither fide of the queftion, but as the appearance of reafon inclines me. Forgive me this error, if it be one; an error of above thirty years ftanding, and which therefore I fhall be very loth to part with. In other matters which relate to polite writing, I fhall feldom differ from you: or, if I do, thall, I hope, have the prudence to conceal my opinion. I am as much as I ought to be, that is, as much as any man can be,

Your, &c.