I LETTER XXII. From Mr. Wycherley. April 1, 1710. Have had yours of the 30th of the last month, which is kinder than I defire it fhou'd be, fince it tells me you cou'd be better pleas'd to be fick again in Town in my company, than to be well in the Country without it; and that you are more impatient to be depriv'd of happiness than of health. Yet, my dear friend, fet raillery or compliment aside, I can bear your abfence (which procures your health and ease) better than I can your company when you are in pain: for I cannot fee you fo without being fo too. Your love to the Country I do not doubt, nor do you (I hope) my love to it or you, fince there I can enjoy your company without feeing you in pain to give me fatisfaction and pleasure; there I can have you without rivals or difturbers; without the too civil, or the too rude; without the noise of the loud, and the cenfures of the filent; and wou'd rather have you abuse me there with the truth, than at this distance with your compliment: fince now, your bufinefs of a friend and kindnefs to a friend, is by finding fault with his faults, and mending them by your obliging feverity. I hope (in point of your good nature) you will have no cruel charity for those papers of mine, you are fo willing to be troubled with; which I take moft infinitely kind of you, and fhall acknowledge with gratitude, as long as I live. No friend can do more for his friend than by preferving his reputation (nay not by preferving his D 2 life) life) fince by preferving his life he can only make him live about three core or fourfcore years; but by preferving his reputation, he can make him live as long as the world lafts; fo fave him from damning, when he is gone to the devil. Therefore I pray condemn me in private, as the Thieves do their accomplices in Newgate, to fave them from condemnation by the publick. Be moft kindly unmerciful to my poetical faults, and do with my papers, as you country-gentlemen do with your trees, flash, cut, and lop-off the excrefcencies and dead parts of my wither'd Bayes, that the little remainder may live the longer, and increase the value of them by diminishing the number. I have troubled you with my papers rather to give you pain than pleature, notwithstanding your compliment, which fays you take the trouble kindly fuch is your generofity to your friends, that you take it kindly to be defired by them to do them a kindness; and you think it done to you, when they give you an opportunity to do it to them. Wherefore you may be fure to be troubled with my letters out of intereft, if not kindness; fince mine to you will procure yours to me: fo that I write to you more for my own fake than yours; lefs to make you think I write well, than to learn from you to write better. Thus you fee intereft in my kindness, which is like the friendship of the world, rather to make a friend than be a friend; but I am yours, as a true Plain-dealer. : 1 LETTER From Mr. Wycherley. April 11, 1710. IF I can do part of my bufinefs at Shrewsbury in a fortnights time (which I propofe to do) I will be foon after with you, and trouble you with my company, for the remainder of the fummer: in the mean time I beg you to give your felf the pains of altering, or leaving out what you think fuperfluous in my papers, that I may endeavour to print fuch a number of them as you and I shall think fit, about Michaelmas next. In order to which (my dear friend) I beg you to be fo kind to me, as to be fevere to them; that the criticks may be lefs fo: for I had rather be condemn'd by my friend in private, than expos'd to my foes in publick, the criticks, or common judges, who are made fuch by having been old offenders them felves. Pray believe I have as much faith in your friendship and fincerity, as I have deference to your judgment; and as the best mark of a friend is telling his friend his faults in private, fo the next is concealing them from the publick, 'till they are fit to appear. In the mean time I am not a little fenfible of the great kindness you do me, in the trouble you take for me, in putting my Rhimes in tune, fince good founds fet off often ill fenfe, as the Italian fongs, whofe good airs, with the worst words or meaning, make the best mufick; fo by your tuning my Welch harp, my rough fenfe may be the lefs offenfive to the nicer ears of thofe criticks, who deal more in found than fense. Pray then take pity at once both of my readers and D3 me me, in fhortning my barren abundance, and increafing their patience by it, as well as the obligations I have to you: And fince no madrigaller can entertain the head, unless he pleases the ear; and fince the crowded Opera's have left the best Comedies with the leaft audiences, 'tis a fign found can prevail over fense; therefore foften my words, and ftrengthen my fenfe, and Eris mihi magnus Apollo. I Receiv'd * LETTER XXIV. April 15, 1710. most extream kind letter but juft now. your It found me over those papers you mention, which have been my employment ever fince Easter-monday: I hope before Michaelmas to have discharg'd my task; which, upon the word of a friend, is the most pleasing one I cou'd be put upon. Since you are so near going into Shropshire, (whither I fhall not care to write of this matter, for fear of the mifcarriage of any letters) I muft defire your leave to give you a plain and fincere account of what I have found from a more ferious application to them. Upon comparison with the former volume, I find much more repeated than I till now imagin'd, as well as in the present volume, which, if (as you told me laft) you would have me dafh over with a line, will deface the whole copy extremely and to a degree that (I fear) may displease you. I have ev'ry where mark'd in the margins the page and line, both in this and the other part. But if you order me not to cross the lines, or would any any way elfe limit my commiffion, you will oblige me by doing it in your next letter; for I am at once equally fearful of fparing you, and of offending you by too impudent a correction. Hitherto however I have croft 'em fo as to be legible, because you bade me. When I think all the repetitions are ftruck out in a copy, I fometimes find more upon dipping in the firft volume, and the number increafes fo much, that I believe more fhortning will be requifite than you may be willing to bear with, unless you are in good earnest refolv'd to have no thought repeated. Pray forgive this freedom, which as I must be fincere in this cafe fo I cou'd not but take, and let me know if I am to go on at this rate, or if you would prefcribe any other method? I am very glad you continue your refolution of feeing me in my Hermitage this fummer; the fooner you return, the fooner I fhall be happy, which indeed my want of any company that is entertaining or efteemable, together with frequent infirmities and pains, hinder me from being in your abfence. "Tis (I am fure) a real truth, that my fickness cannot make me quite weary of my felf when I have you with me; and I fhall want no company but yours, when you are here. You fee how freely and with how little care, I talk rather than write to you: this is one of the many advantages of friendship, that one can fay to one's friend the things that ftand in need of pardon, and at the fame time be fure of it. Indeed I do not know whether or no the letters of friends are the worse for being fit for none else to read? 'tis an argument of the trust repofed in a friend's good nature, when one writes fuch things to him as require a good portion of it. I have experienced yours fo often and fo long, that I D 4 can |