almanacks, is really kept alive and in practice: that feeding the hungry, and giving alms to the poor, do yet make a part of good house-keeping, in a latitude not more remote from London than fourscore miles: and lastly, that prayers and roast-beef actually made some people as happy as a whore and a bottle. But here in town, I assure you, men, women, and children, have done with these things. Charity not only begins, but ends, at home. Instead of the four cardinal virtues, now reign four courtly ones; we have cunning for prudence, rapine for justice, time-serving for fortitude, and luxury for temperance. Whatever you may fancy, where you live in a state of ignorance, and see nothing but quiet, religion, and goodhumour, the case is just as 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 sensible which of these are 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 say) that this matter was as clear to all men as it is to

Your affectionate, etc.

DEAR SIR,

LETTER XVIII.

April 21, 1726.

I HAVE a great inclination to write to you, though I cannot by writing, any more than I could by words, express what part I bear in your sufferings. Nature and esteem in you are joined to aggravate your affliction the latter I have in a degree equal even to yours, and a tie of friendship approaches near to the tenderness of nature: yet, God knows, no man living is less fit to comfort you, as no man is more deeply sensible than myself of the greatness of the loss. That very virtue which secures his present state from all the sorrows incident to ours, does but aggrandize our sensation of its being removed from our sight, from our affection, and from our imitation; for the friendship and society of good men does not only make us happier, but 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 so, I take his very removal to be a proof; Providence would certainly lend virtuous men to a world that so much wants them, as long as in its justice to them it could spare them to us. May my soul 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 preserve his memory in the way he would best 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; so we shall 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 consequently not to be evermore separated from him. I will add but one word that relates to what remains of yourself and me, since so valued a part of us is gone; it is to beg you to accept, as yours by inheritance, of the vacancy he has left in a heart, which (while he could fill it with such hopes, wishes, and affections for him as suited a mortal creature) was truly and warmly his; and shall (I assure you in the sincerity of sorrow for my own loss) be faithfully at your service while I continue to love his memory, that is, while I continue to be myself.

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

LETTERS

TO AND FROM

DR. ATTERBURY,

BISHOP OF ROCHESTER,

From the Year 1716 to 1723.

LETTER I.

THE BISHOP OF ROCHESTER TO MR. POPE.

December, 1716.

I RETURN your1 Preface, which I have read twice with pleasure. The modesty and good sense there is in it, must please every one that reads it: And since there is nothing that can offend, I see not why you should balance a moment about printing italways provided, that there is nothing said there which you may have occasion to unsay hereafter; of which you yourself are the best and the only judge. This is my sincere opinion, which I give, because you ask it: And which I would not give, though asked, but to a man I value as much as I do you; being sensible how improper it is, on many accounts, for me to interpose in things of this nature; which I never understood well, and now understand somewhat less than ever I did. But I can

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