LETTER VI. April 16, 1740. ou could not give me more pleasure than by your short letter, which acquaints me that I may hope to fee you fo foon. Let us meet like men who have thought Mr. Pope was unrivalled and alone, and it was, that he is the only poet who has found out the art of uniting wit to sublimity. Your wit,' fays he, gives a splendour and delicacy to your fublimity, and your fublimity gives a grace and dignity to your wit.' They both agreed in condemning Bishop Atterbury's judgment on the Arabian Tales; and upon my obferving to Mr. Warburton that they were very unequal, several of them being finely imagined, and conveying an exquisite sentiment of morality, while others were mean in the device, conducted with flatness and a want of spirit, with nothing remarkably instructive in the conclufions to be drawn from them; he fatisfied me with this ingenious reafon for it, which is built on an hypothefis of his own. • You know,' fays he, they were translated by a Frenchman, from an original Arabic manuscript, in the King of France's Library; but there is not above one tenth of the original translated. The Arabian collector appears to have been a man of little taste; for in order to give a due connection to the whole, he has laid the scene of his narration in the most flourishing state of that Empire for Arts, Learning, Power, and has at the fame time introduced into it fables concerning things which happened above a thousand years after, juft as if one should suppose a story to be told in the reign of William the Conqueror, which related to George I. Now,' continued he, the noblest fables in the collection fell in naturally with the scene which he has laid, fo that they are transcribed from the works of fome famous author in those days, and the rest, which you speak of as poor and trifling, are taken from fome later fabulifts, who had neither invention to contrive nor thought enough to give a fenfe and meaning to their stories.'-He added, that from the Arabian tables, you might gather the completest notion of the Eaftern Z 3 have been many years acquainted with each other*, and whose friendship is not to begin, but continue. All forms fhould be paft, when people know each other's mind so well: I flatter myself you are a man after my own heart, who feeks content only from within, and fays to greatnefs, Tuas habeto tibi res, egomet habebo meas. But as it is but just your other friends fhould have fome part of you, I infift on my making you the first visit in London, and thence, after a few days, to carry you to Twitenham, for as many as you can afford me. If the prefs be to take up any part of your time, the sheets may be brought you hourly thither by my waterman: and you will have more leisure to attend to any thing of that fort than in town. I believe also I have moft of the Books you can want, or can easily borrow them. I earnestly defire a line may be left at Mr. R's, where and when I shall call upon you, which I will daily enquire for, whether Eastern ceremonies and manners.'-Mr. Pope communicated to Mr. Warburton, Lord Bolingbroke's rules for the reading of History, which he thinks a very fine performance. That treatise, and the account of his own times are to be published together, after his death. In fhort, Mr. Warburton declares he never spent a fortnight fo agreeably any where as at Twickenham; he was prefented to all Mr. Pope's friends, who entertained him with fin. gular civility, and received him with an engaging freedom." The modeft and judicious estimate which our author himself gives in this letter, of his own talents and powers, is very striking and remarkable. *Their very first interview was in Lord Radnor's garden, juft by Mr. Pope's at Twickenham. DodЛley was prefent; and was, he told me, aftonished at the high compliments paid him by Pope as he approached him. whether I chance to be here, or in the country. Believe me, Sir, with the trueft regard, and the fincerest wish to deserve, Yours, etc. IT LETTER VII. Twitenham, June 24, 1740. is true that I am a very unpunctual correfpondent, though no unpunctual agent or friend; and that, in the commerce of words, I am both poor and lazy. Civility and Compliment generally are the goods that letter-writers exchange, which, with honeft men, feems a kind of illicit trade, by having been for the most part carried on, and carried furthest by defigning men. I am therefore reduced to plain inquiries, how my friend does, and what he does? and to repetitions, which I am afraid to tire him with, how much I love him. Your two kind letters gave me real fatisfaction, in hearing you were fafe and well; and in fhewing me you took kindly my unaffected endeavours to prove my esteem for you, and delight in your converfation. Indeed my languid. state of health, and frequent deficiency of fpirits, together with a number of diffipations, et aliena negotia centum, all confpire to throw a faintness and cool appearance over my conduct to those I beft love; which I perpetually feel, and grieve at: but in earnest, no man is more deeply touched with merit in general, or with particular merit towards me, in any one. You ought therefore in both views to hold yourself what you are to me in my opinion and affection; fo high in each, that I may perhaps feldom attempt to tell it you. The greatest justice, and favour too that you can do me, is to take it for granted. Do not therefore commend my talents, but instruct me by your own. I am not really learned enough to be a judge in works of the nature and depth of yours. But I travel through your book as through an amazing scene of ancient Egypt or Greece; ftruck with veneration and wonder; but at every step wanting an inftructor to tell me all I wish to know. Such you prove to me in the walks of antiquity; and fuch you will prove to all mankind: but with this additional character, more than any other fearcher into antiquities, that of a genius equal to your pains, and of a taste equal to your learning. I am obliged greatly to you, for what you have projected at Cambridge, in relation to my Effay i*; but i Mr. Pope defired the Editor to procure a good translation of the Effay on Man into Latin profe. W. *The following is a Letter from our Author to Mr. Christopher Smart. "SIR, Twickenham, Nov. 18. "I thank you for the favour of yours; I would not give you the trouble of tranflating the whole Effay you mention; the two but more for the motive which did originally, and does confequentially in a manner, animate all your goodness to me, the opinion you entertain of my honeft intention in that piece, and your zeal to demonstrate me no irreligious man. I was very fincere with you in what I told you of my own opinion of my own character as a poet, and, I think, I may confcientioufly fay, I fhall die in it. I have nothing to add, but that I hope fometimes to hear you are well, as fhall certainly now and then hear the best I can you tell you of myself. first Epistles are already well done, and if you try, I could wish it were on the last, which is less abstracted, and more eafily falls into poetry, and common place. A few lines at the beginning and the conclufion, will be fufficient for a trial whether you yourself can like the task or not. I believe the Effay on Criticism will in general be the more agreeable, both to a young writer, and to the majority of readers. What made me with the other well done, was the want of a right understanding of the fubject, which appears in the foreign verfions, in two Italian, two French, and one German. There is one, indeed, in Latin verse, printed at Wirtemberg, very faithful, but inelegant; and another in French profe; but in these the spirit of poetry is as much loft, as the sense and system itself in the others. I ought to take this opportunity of acknowledging the Latin translation of my Ode, which you sent me, and in which I could fee little or nothing to alter; it is fo exact. Believe me, Sir, equally defirous of doing you any service, and afraid of engaging you in an art so little profitable, though fo well deferving, as good poetry. "I am, your most obliged and fincere humble Servant, |