LETTER XXVII.

December 30, 1710.

I

RESUME my old liberty of throwing out myself upon paper to you, and making what thoughts float uppermost in my head, the subject of a letter. They are at present upon laughter, which (for aught I know) may be the cause you might sometimes think me too remifs a friend, when I was moft intirely fo: for I am never fo inclined to mirth as when I am most pleased and moft eafy, which is in the company of a friend like yourself.

As the fooling and toying with a mistress is a proof of fondness, not difrefpect, fo is raillery with a friend. I know there are prudes in friend fhip, who expect distance, awe, and adoration; but I know you are not of them and I, for my part, am no idol-worfhipper, though a Papift. If I were to addrefs Jupiter himself in a heathen way, I fancy I fhould be apt to take hold of his knee in a familiar manner, if not of his beard like Dionyfius; I was just going to fay, of his buttons; but I think Jupiter wore none (however I won't be pofitive to fo nice a critic as you, but his robe might be fubnected with a Fibula). I know fome philofophers define laughter, A recommending ourfelves to our own favour, by comparison with the weaknefs of another but I am fure I very rarely laugh with that view, nor do I believe children have any fuch

confider

confideration in their heads, when they exprefs their pleasure this way: I laugh full as innocently as they, for the most part, and as fillily. There is a difference too betwixt laughing about a thing, and laughing at a thing: one may find the inferior man (to make a kind of cafuistical diftinction) provoked to folly at the fight or obfervation of fome circumstances of a thing, when the thing itself appears folemn and august to the fuperior man, that is, our judgment and reafon. Let an Ambaffador speak the best sense in the world, and deport himself in the most graceful manner before a Prince, yet if the tail of his fhirt happen (as I have known it happen to a very wife man) to hang out behind, more people fhall laugh at that than attend to the other; till they recollect themselves, and then they will not have a jot the lefs refpect for the minister. I must confefs the iniquity of my countenance before you; feveral muscles of my face fometimes take an impertinent liberty with my judgment, but then my judgment foon rifes, and fets all right again about my mouth: and I find I value no man fo much, as him in whofe fight I have been playing the fool. I cannot be fub perfona before a man I love; and not to laugh with honefty, when nature prompts, or folly, (which is more a fecond nature than any thing I know,) is but a knavish hypocritical way of making a mask of one's own face. To conclude, those that are my friends I laugh with, and thofe that are not I laugh at; fo am merry in company, and if ever

I am wife, it is all by myself. You take just another course, and to those that are not your friends, are very civil; and to thofe that are, very endearing and complaifant thus when you and I meet, there will be the Rifus&Blanditia united together in converfation, as they commonly are in verfe. But without laughter on the one fide, or compliment on the other, I affure you I am, with real esteem,

LETTER XXVIII.

FROM MR. CROMWELL.

Your, etc.

October 16, 1711.

MR. Wycherley vifited me at Bath in my sickness,

and expreffed much affection to me: hearing from me how welcome his letters would be, he prefently writ to you; in which I inferted my ferall, and after, a fecond. He went to Gloucefter in his way to Salop, but was disappointed of a boat, and fo returned to the Bath; then he fhewed me your answer to his letters, in which you fpoke of my good-nature, but, I fear, you found me very froward at Reading; yet you allow for my illness. I could not poffibly be in the fame houfe with Mr. Wycherley, though I fought it earnestly; nor come up to town with him, he being engaged with others; but, whenever we

met,

met, we talked of you. He praises your Poem ", and even outvies me in kind expreffions of you. As if he had not wrote two letters to you, he was for writing every post; I put him in mind he had already. Forgive me this wrong; I know not whether my talking fo much of your great humanity and tendernefs to me, and love to him; or whether the return of his natural difpofition to you, was the caufe; but certainly you are now highly in his favour: now he will come this winter to your house, and I must go with him; but firft he will invite you fpeedily to town. I arrived on Saturday laft much wearied, yet had wrote fooner, but was told by Mr. Gay (who has writ a pretty poem to Lintot, and who gives you his fervice) that you was gone from home. Lewis fhewed me your letter, which fet me right, and your next letter is impatiently expected from me. Mr. Wycherley came to town on Sunday laft, and kindly furprized me with a vifit on Monday morning. We dined and drank together; and I faying, To our loves, he replied, 'Tis Mr. Pope's health. He faid he would go to Mr. Thorold's, and leave a letter for you. Though I cannot anfwer for the event of all this, in refpect of him; yet I can affure you, that, when you please to come, you will be most defirable to me, as always by inclination, fo now by duty, who fhall ever be

Your, etc.

ני

Effay on Criticism.

POPE.

LETTER XXIX.

November 12, 1711.

I

RECEIVED the entertainment of your letter the day after I had fent you one of mine, and I am but this morning returned hither. The news you tell me of the many difficulties you found in your return from Bath, gives me fuch a kind of pleasure as we ufually take in accompanying our friends in their mixed adventures; for, methinks, I fee you labouring through all your inconveniencies of the rough roads, the hard faddle, the trotting horse, and what not? What an agreeable furprize would it have been to me, to have met you by pure accident, (which I was within an ace of doing,) and to have carried you off triumphantly, set you on an easier pad, and relieved the wandering knight with a night's lodging and rural repast, at our castle in the foreft? But these are only the pleasing imaginations of a difappointed lover, who muft fuffer in a melancholy abfence yet these two months. In the mean time, I take up with the Muses for want of your better company; the Mufes, quæ nobifcum pernoctant, peregrinantur, rufticantur. Thofe aërial ladies just discover enough to me of their beauties to urge my purfuit, and draw me on in a wandering maze of thought, ftill in hopes (and only in hopes) of attaining those favours from them, which they confer on their more happy admirers. We grafp fome more

beautiful