will never be mine while I have fuch meorums as Dr. Parnelle and Dr. Swift. I hope the Spring will restore you to us, and with you all the beauties and colours of nature. Not but I congratulate you on the pleasure you must take in being admir'd in your own country, which fo seldom happens to prophets and poets: but in this you have the advantage of Poets; you are mafter of an art that must profper and grow rich, as long as people love, or are proud of themselves, or their own perfons. However, you have ftay'd long enough, methinks, to have painted all the numberlefs hiftories of old Ogygia. If you have begun to be hiftorical, I recommend to your hand the ftory which every pious Irifhman ought to begin with, that of St. Patrick; to the end you may be obliged (as Dr. P. was, when he tranflated the Batrachomuromachia) to come into England, to copy the Frogs, and fuch other vermin as were never feen in that land fince the time of that Confeffon

1 long to see you a hiftory painter. You have already done enough for the private, do something for the public; and be not confined, like the reft, to draw only such filly ftories as our own faces tell of us. The Ancients too expect you should do them right; thofe ftatues from which you learned your beautiful and noble ideas, demand it as a piece of gratitude from you, to make them truly known to all nations, in the account you intend to write of their characters I hope you think more warily than ever of that defign.

As to your enquiry about your house, when I come within the walls, they put me in mind of thofe of Carthage, where your friend, like the wandering Trojan,

animum Pictura pascit inani、

For the fpacious manfion, like a Turkish Caravanferah, entertains the vagabonds with only bare lodging. I rule the family very ill, keep bad hours, and lend out your pictures about the town. See what it is to have a poet

in your houfe! Frank indeed does all he can in fuch a VOL. IV.

K

cir

circumftance; for, confidering he has a wild beaft in it, he conftantly keeps the door chain'd: every time it is open'd, the links rattle, the rafty hinges roar. The house feems fo fenfible that you are its fupport, that it is ready to drop in your abfence; but I ftill truft myself under its roof, as depending that providence will preserve so many Raphael's, Titian's, and Guido's, as are lodged in your Cabinet. Surely the fins of one poet can hardly be fo heavy, as to bring an old houfe over the heads of fo many painters. In a word, your houfe is falling; but what of that? I am only a lodger *.

L

The Hon. Mr. CRAGGS to Mr. POPE.

Paris, Sept. 2, 1716. AST poft brought me the favour of your letter of

the 10th Aug. O. S. It would be taking too much upon me to decide, that it was a witty one; I never pretend to more judgment than to know what pleases me, and can affure you, it was a very agreeable one. The proof I can give you of my fincerity in this opinion is, that I hope and defire you would not ftop at this, but continue more of them.

I am in a place where pleafure is continually flowing. The Princes fet the example, and the fubjects follow at a diftance. The Ladies are of all parties †, by which means the converfation of the men is very much foftened and fashioned from those blunt difputes on politics, and rough jefts, we are fo guilty of; while the freedom of the women takes away all formality and conftraint. I must own, at the fame time, these beauties are a little too artificial for my tafte: you have feen a French picture the original is more painted, and fuch a cruft of powder and effence in their hair, that you can fee no difference between black and red. By difufing ftays and indulging themselves at table, they run out of all fhape; but as te Alluding to the story of the Irishman, fi.e. In all companies,

that,

that, they may give a good reafon, they prefer conveniency to parade, and are, by this means, as ready, as they are generally willing, to be charitable.

I am furpriz'd to find I have wrote fo much fcandal ; I fancy I am either fetting up for a wit, or imagine Į muft write in this ftyle to a wit; I hope you'll prove a good-natur'd one, and not only let me hear from you fometimes, but forgive the fmall encouragement you meet with. I won't trouble myself to finifh finely; a true compliment is better than a good one, and I can you without any, that I am very fincerely, Sir, Yours, &c,

affure

1

May S,

I Had not omitted anfwering yours of the 18th of last month, but out of a defire to give you fome certain and fatisfactory account, which way, and at what time, you might take your journey. I am now commiffioned to tell you, that Mr. Craggs will expect you on the rifing of the parliament, which will be as foon as he can receive you in the manner he would receive a man de belles Lettres, that is, in tranquillity and full leifure. I dare fay your way of life (which, in my tafte, will be the best in the world, and with one of the beft men in the world) muft prove highly to your contentment. And I muft add, it will be ftill the more a joy to me, as I fhall reap a particular advantage from the good I fhall have done in bringing you together, by feeing it in my own neighbourhood. Mr. Craggs has taken a house close by mine, whither he propofes to come in three weeks: in the mean time I heartily invite you to liye with me; where á frugal and philofophical diet, for a time, may give you a higher relifh of that elegant way of life you will enter into after. I defire to know by the first paft how foon I may hope for you. K 2

I am

I am a little fcandalized at your complaint that your time lies heavy on your hands, when the Mufes have put so many good materials into your head to employ them, › As to your queftion, What I am doing? I answer, Juft what I have been doing fome years, my duty; fecondly, relieving myself with neceffary amusements, or exercises, which fhall ferve me inftead of phyfic as long as they can; thirdly, reading till I am tired; and laftly, writing when I have no other thing in the world to do, or no friend tą entertain in company,

My mother is, I thank God, the easier, if not the better, for my cares; and I am the happier in that regard, as well as in the confcioufnefs of doing my beft, My next felicity is in retaining the good opinion of honeft men, who think me not quite undeferving of it; and in finding no injuries from others hurt me, as long as I know my felf. I will add the fincerity with which I act towards ingenious and undefigning men, and which makes me always (even by a natural bond) their friend; therefore believe me very affectionately Your, &c.

I

LETTER VII,

Rev. Dean BERKLEY*, to Mr, POPE,

Naples, Oct. 22, N. S. 1717.

you

with

Have long had it in my thoughts to trouble a letter, but was difcouraged for want of fomething that I could think worth fending fifteen hundred miles, Italy is fuch an exhausted subject, that I dare fay you'd eafily forgive my faying nothing of it; and the imagination of a Poet is a thing fo nice and delicate, that it is no easy matter to find out images capable of giving pleafure to one of the few, who (in any age) have come up to that character. I am nevertheless lately returned from an island, where I paffed three or four months; which,

Afterwards Bishop of Cloyne in Irelani, author of the Dialogues of Hylas and Philonous, the Minute Ph.lofopher, &c, 24

were

were it fet out in its true colours, might, methinks, amuse you agreeably enough for a minute or two. The ifland Inarime is an epitome of the whole earth, contain ing, within the compafs of eighteen miles, a wonderful variety of hills, vales, ragged rocks, fruitful plains, and barren mountains, all thrown together in a moft romantic confufion. The air is, in the hotteft feason, conftantly refreshed by cool breezes from the fea. The vales produce excellent wheat and Indian corn, but are moftly covered with vineyards, intermix'd with fruit-trees. Befides the common kinds, as cherries, apricots, peaches, &c. they produce oranges, limes, almonds, pomegranates, figs, water-melons, and many other fruits unknown to our climates, which lie every where open to the paffenger. The hills are the greater part covered to the top with vines, fome with chefnut groves, and others with thickets of myrtle and lentifcus. The fields in the northern fide are divided by hedge-rows of myrtle. Several fountains and rivulets add to the beauty of this landscape, which is likewife fet off by the variety of fome barren fpots, and naked rocks. But that which crowns the scene is a large mountain, rifing out of the middle of the island (once a terrible Volcano, by the ancients called Mons Epomeus); its lower parts are adorned with vines, and other fruits; the middle affords pafture to flocks of goats and fheep; and the top is a fandy pointed rock, from which you have the finest profpect in the world, furveying at one view, befides feveral pleasant islands lying at your feet, a tract of Italy about three hundred miles in length, from the promontory of Antium to the cape of Palinurus the greater part of which hath been fyng by Homer and Virgil, as making a confiderable part of the travels and adventures of their two Herges, The islands Caprea, Prochyta, and Parthenope, together with Cajeta, Cume, Monte Mifeno, the habitations of Circe, the Syrens, and the Laftrigones, the bay of Naples, the promontory of Minerva, and the whole Campagnia felice, make but part of this noble landscape which would demand an