LETTER XVI. TO DR. ARBUTHNOT. September 10. I AM glad your travels delighted you; improve you, I am fure, they could not; you are not fo much a youth as that, though you run about with a King of fixteen, and (what makes him ftill more a child) a King of Frenchmen. My own time has been more melancholy, spent in attendance upon death, which has feized one of our family: my mother is fomething better, though at her advanced age every day is a climacteric. There was joined to this an indifpofition of my own, which I ought to look upon as a flight one compared with my mother's, because my life is not of half the confequence to any body that her's is to me. All these incidents have hindered my more speedy reply to your obliging letter. The article you enquire of, is of as little concern to me as you defire it should; namely, the railing papers about the Odyffey. If the book has merit, it will extinguish all fuch nafty scandal; as the Sun puts an end to ftinks, merely by coming out. I wish I had nothing to trouble me more; an honeft mind is not in the dishonest one. power of any To break its peace, there must be fome guilt or consciousness, which is inconfiftent with its own prin ciples. ciples. Not but malice and injuftice have their day, like fome poor fhort-lived vermin that die in shooting their own ftings. Falfehood is Folly, (fays Homer,) and liars and calumniators at laft hurt none but themfelves, even in this world: in the next, 'tis charity to say, God have mercy on them! they were the devil's vicegerents upon earth, who is the father of lies, and, I fear, has a right to dispose of his children. I have had an occafion to make these reflections of late more justly than from any thing that concerns my writings, for it is one that concerns my morals, and (which I ought to be as tender of as my own) the good character of another very innocent perfon *, who I am fure shares your friendship no lefs than I do. No creature has better natural difpofitions, or would act more rightly or reafonably in every duty, did fhe act by herself, or from herself; but you know it is the misfortune of that family to be governed like a fhip, I mean the Head guided by the Tail, and that by every wind that blows in it. * Probably Martha Blount, respecting whose intimacy with Pope there were fome infinuations to her disadvantage. LETTER XVII. MR. POPE TO THE EARL OF OXFORD*. My Lord, YOUR October 21, 1721. OUR Lordship may be furprized at the liberty I take in writing to you; though you will allow me always to remember, that you once permitted me that honour, in conjunction with fome others who better deserved it. I hope you will not wonder I am ftill defirous to have you think me your grateful and faithful fervant, but I own I have an ambition yet farther, to have others think me fo, which is the occafion I give your Lordship the trouble of this. Poor Parnelle, before he died, left me the charge of publifhing these few remains of his : I have a ftrong defire to make them, their author, and their publisher, more confiderable, by addreffing and dedicating them all to you. There is a pleasure in bearing teftimony to truth, and a vanity, perhaps, which at least is as excufable as any vanity can be. I beg you, my Lord, to allow me to gratify it in prefixing this paper of *If he had not been releafed from his imprisonment in the Tower, and had been brought to a trial, he would have produced strong and undeniable proofs, that many of his perfecutors, particularly the D. of Mh, were engaged in intrigues with the Pretender and his party. His friends had in their cuftody a letter that irrefragably would have proved this fact, which they fhewed to the Duchefs. Lord Oxford was released foon after this letter had been fhewn to her. WARTON. of honest verses to the book. I fend the book itself, which, I dare fay, you'll receive more fatisfaction in perufing, than you can from any thing written upon the subject of yourself. Therefore I am a good deal in doubt, whether you will care for fuch an addition to it. All I fhall fay for it is, that it is the only dedication I ever writ, and fhall be the only one, whether you accept of it or not: for I will not bow the knee to a lefs man than my Lord Oxford, and I expect to fee no greater in my time*. After all, if your Lordship will tell my Lord Harley that I must not do this, you may depend upon a fuppreffion of thefe verfes (the only copy whereof I fend you); but you never fhall fupprefs that great, fincere, and entire refpect, with which I am always, My Lord, Your, etc. * Bolingbroke had a very different, and indeed unjust, opinion of Lord Oxford, whom he calls, "a man of whom Nature meant to make a spy, or, at most, a captain of miners; and whom For tune, in one of her whimsical moods, made a General.” This was written in a letter to Swift, 1719. And the words must have been mortifying to Swift, who thought highly of Lord Oxford's abilities. WARTON. I LETTER XVIII. THE EARL OF OXFORD TO MR. POPE. SIR, Brampton-Castle, Nov. 6, 1721. RECEIVED your packet, which could not but give me great pleasure, to fee you preferve an old friend in your memory; for it must needs be very agreeable to be remembered by those we highly value. But then how much fhame did it caufe me, when I read your very fine verfes enclosed? My mind reproached me how far fhort I came of what your great friendship and delicate pen would partially describe me. You ask my confent to publifh it: to what ftraits doth this reduce me? I look back indeed to thofe evenings I have usefully and pleasantly spent, with Mr. Pope, Mr. Parnelle, Dean Swift, the Doctor, etc. I fhould be glad the world knew You admitted me to your friendfhip, and fince your affection is too hard for your Judgment, I am contented to let the world know how well Mr. Pope can write upon a barren subject. I return you an exact copy of the verses, that I may keep the original, as a teftimony of the only error you have been guilty of. I hope very speedily to embrace you in London, and to affure you of the particular esteem and friendship wherewith I am *"Recall the evenings of thy toilfome days, Your, etc. |