your fore leave your foreft of beafts for ours of brutes, called men, who now in full cry (pack'd by the court or country) run down in the house of commons, a deferted horned beaft of the Court to the fatisfaction of their spectators: Befides, (more for diverfion) you may fee not only the two great playhoufes of the nation, those of the lords and commons, in difpute with one another; but the two other play-houses 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 ftate. 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 houses) to filence one or both, to keep peace between them. Now I have told you all the news of the town. I LETTER X. I am, &c. From Mr. Wycherley. Feb. 5.1705-6. Have receiv'd your kind Letter, with my paper 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, fo to be greater gainers by their lofs, (which is indeed my cafe now.) Weil, *The fame which was printed in the Year 1717. in a Mifcellany of Bern. Lintot's, and in the Pofthumous Works of Mr. Wycherley. you you have prun'd my fading lawrels of fome fuperfluous, faplefs, and dead branches, to make the remainder live the longer; thus like your master 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 fubject, fince I find you a little too nice to be dealt freely with; tho' you have given me fome encouragement to hope, our friendship might be without fhynefs, or criminal modefty; for a friend like a mistress, tho' he is not to be mercenary to be true, yet ought not to refufe a friends kindness because it is small or trivial: I have told you (I think) that a Spanish lady faid to her poor, poetical gallant, that a Queen if fhe had to do with a groom, would expect a mark of his kindness from him, tho' it were but his curry-comb. But you and I will dispute this matter when I am fo happy as to fee you here; and perhaps 'tis the only difpute 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 defign'd to leave with you fome of 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, Acar you in the country, for you may be affured there is nothing I defire fo much, as an improvement of your friendship. LETTER BY LETTER XI. April 10, 1706. Y one of yours of the laft month, you defire me to felect, if poffible, fome things from the † first volume of your Mifcellanies, which may be alter'd fo as to appear again. I doubted your meaning in this; whether it was to pick out the best of those verses, (as that on the Idleness of business, on Ignorance, on Laizness, &c.) to make the method and numbers exact, and avoid repetitions? For tho' (upon reading 'em on this occafion) I believe they might receive fuch an alteration with advantage; yet they would not be chang'd fo much, but any one would know 'em for the fame at firft fight. Or if you mean to improve the worst pieces? which are fuch, as to render them very good, would require a great addition, and almost the entire new writing of them. Or, laftly, if you mean the middle fort, as the Songs and love-verses? For these will need only to be shortned, 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 try'd 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 wonld apply your care wholly at prefent to those which are yet unpublished, of which + Printed in folio, in the Year 1704. 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 wifh you would defer, at leaft 'till you have finish'd these that are yet unprinted. I fend 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 them: fome I have contracted, as we do fun-beams, to improve their energy and force: fome I have taken quite away, as we take branches from a tree, to add to the fruit; others I have entirely new exprefs'd, and turned more into poetry. Donne (like one of his fucceffors) had infinitely more wit than he wanted verfification: for the great dealers in wit, like thofe in trade, take least pains to fet off ther goods; while the haberdashers of small wit, fpare for no decorations or ornaments. You have commiffion'd me to paint your fhop, and I have done my best to brush you up like your neighbours. But I can no more pretend to the merit of the production, than a midwife to the virtues and good qualities of the child fhe helps into the light. The few things I have entirely added you will excufe; you may take them lawfully for your own, because they are no more than sparks lighted up by your fire and you may omit them at laft, if you think them but fquibs in your triumphs. I am, &c. LETTER I LETTER XII. From Mr. Wycherley. Nov. 11, 1707. Receiv'd yours of the 9th yesterday, which has (like the rest of your letters) at once pleas'd and inftructed me; fo that I affure you, you can no more write too much to your abfent friends, than speak too much to the present. This is a truth that all men own who have either feen your writings, or heard your difcourfe; enough to make others how their judgment, in ceafing to write or talk, efpecially to you, or in your company. However, I fpeak or write to you, not to please you, but my felf; fince I provoke your answers: which whilft they humble me, give me vanity; tho' I am leffen'd by you even when you commend me: fince you commend my little fense with so much more of yours, that you put me out of countenance, whilft you would keep me in it. So that you have found a way (again the custom of great wits) to fhew even a great deal of good nature with a great deal of good fenfe. I thank you for the book you promis'd me, by which I find you would not only correct my lines, but my life. As to the damn'd verfes I entrusted you with, I hope you will let them undergo your purgatory, to fave them from other people's damning them: fince the criticks, who are generally the first damn'd in this life, like the damn'd below, never leave to bring those above them under their own circumstances. I beg you to peruse my papers, and felect what you think C 2 |