imagination as warm, and numbers as flowing, as your own, to defcribe it. The inhabitants of this delicious ifle, as they are without riches and honours, fo are they without the vices and follies that attend them; and were they but as much ftrangers to revenge, as they are to avarice and ambition, they might in fact answer the poetical notions of the golden age. But they have got, as an alloy to their happiness, an ill habit of murdering one another on flight offences. We had an inftance of this the fecond night after our arrival, a youth of eighteen being shot dead by our door; and yet by the fole fecret of minding our own business, we found a means of living fecurely among those dangerous people. Would you know how we pass the time at Naples? Our chief entertainment is the devotion of our neighbours: befides the gaiety of their churches (where folks go to fee what they call una bella Devotione, i. e. a fort of religious Opera) they make fireworks almost every week, out of devotion; the streets are often hung with arras, out of devotion; and (what is still more ftrange) the ladies invite gentlemen to their houses, and treat them with mufic and fweetmeats, out of devotion; in a word, were it not for this devotion of its inhabitants, Naples would have little elfe to recommend it, befide the air and fituation. Learning is in no very thriving ftate here, as indeed no where else in Italy; however, among many pretenders, fome men of tafte are to be met with. A friend of mine told me, not long fince, that being to vifit Salvini at Florence, he found him reading your Homer: he liked the notes extremely, and could find no other fault with the verfion, but that he thought it approached too near a paraphrase; which shews him not to be fufficiently acquainted with our language. I wish you health to go on with that noble work; and when you have that, I need not wish you fuccefs. You will do me the juftice to believe, that whatever relates to your welfare is fincerely wished by

Your, &c.

.LETTERS

LETTER VIII.

Mr. POPE to

Dec. 12, 1718.

THE old project of a Window in the bofom, to render the Soul of man visible, is what every honeft friend has manifold reason to wish for; yet even that would not do in our cafe, while you are so far separated from me, and fo long. I begin to fear you'll die in Ireland, and that Denunciation will be fulfilled upon you, Hibernus es, et in Hiberniam reverteris. I fhould be apt to think you in Sancho's cafe; fome Duke has made you Governor of an ifland, or wet place, and you are adminiftring laws to the wild Irifh. But I muft own, when you talk of Building and Planting, you touch my ftring; and I am as apt to pardon you, as the fellow that thought himfelf Jupiter would have pardon'd the other madman who call'd himself his brother Neptune. Alas, Sir, do you know whom you talk to? one that has been a Poet, was degraded to a Translator, and at laft, thro' mere dulnefs, is turned an Architect. You know Martial's cenfure, Præconem facito vel Architectum. However, I have one way left, to plan, to elevate, and to surprize (as Bays fays); the next news you may expect to hear, is, that I am in debt.

The hiftory of my transplantation and fettlement, which you defire, would require a volume, were I to enumerate the many projects, difficulties, viciffitudes, and various fates attending that important part of my life: much more, fhould I describe the many Draughts, Elevations, Profiles, Perspectives, &c. of every Palace and Garden propos'd, intended, and happily raised, by the ftrength of that faculty wherein all great Geniuses excel, Imagination. At laft, the gods and fate have fix'd me on the borders of the Thames, in the districts of Richmond and Twickenham; it is here I have paffed an

entire year of my life, without any fix'd abode in Lon don, or more than cafting a transitory glance (for a day or two at most in a month) on the pomps of the Town It is here I hope to receive you, Sir, returned from eterhizing the Ireland of this age. For you my structures tife; for you my colonades extend their wings; for you my groves aspire, and rofès bloom; and, to say truth, I hope pofterity (which, no doubt, will be made acquainted with all these things) will look upon it as one of the prin cipal motives of my Architecture; that it was a manfion prepar❜d to receive you, against your own should fall to duft, which is deftin'd to be the tomb of poor Frank and Betty, and the immortal monument of the fidelity of two fuch Servants, who have excell'd in conftancy the very Rats of your family.

What more can I tell you of myself? fo much, and yet all put together fo little, that I fcarcè care or know how to do it. But the very reafons that are againft putting it upon paper, are as ftrong for telling it you in perfon; and I am uneafy to be fo long denied the fatisfaction of it.

At prefent I confider you bound in by the Irish Sea, like the ghosts in Virgil,

Trifti palus inamabilis unda

Alligat, et novies Styx circumfufa coërcet! and I can't exprefs how I long to renew our old inter course and conversation, our morning conferences in bed in the fame room, our evening walks in the park, our amufing voyages on the water, our philofophical fuppers, our lectures, our differtations, our gravities, our reve ries, our fooleries, our what not?-This awakens the memory of fome of thofe who have made a part in all thefe. Poor Parnelle, Garth, Rowe! You justly re prove me for not speaking of the death of the laft: Parhelle was too much in my mind, to whose memory I am erecting the best Monument I can. What he gave me to publifh, was but a small part of what he left behind him ; but it was the beft, and I will not make it worse by enlarging

larging it. I'd fain know if he be buried at Chefter, or Dublin; and what care has been, or is to be taken for his Monument, &c. Yet I have not neglected my devoirs to Mr. Rowe; I am writing this very day his epitaph for Weftminfter-Abbey.After thefe, the best-natur'd of men, Sir Samuel Garth, has left me in the trueft concern for his lofs. His death was very heroical, and yet unaffected enough to have made a faint or a philofopher famous. But ill tongues, and worse hearts, havë branded even his last moments, as wrongfully as they did his life, with irreligion. You must have heard many tales on this fubje&t; but if ever there was a good Chriftian, without knowing himself to be fo, it was Dr. Garth. Your, &c.

TH

LETTER IX.

To Mr. ****.

Sept. 17.

HE gaiety of your letter proves you not fo ftudious of Wealth as many of your profeffion are, fince you can derive matter of mirth from want of business. You are none of those Lawyers who deferve the motto of the devil, Circuit quærens quem devoret. But your Circuit will at leaft procure you one of the greatest of temporal bleffings, Health. What an advantageous circumftance is it, for one that loves rambling fo well, to be a grave and reputable rambler; while (like your fellow Circuiteer, the Sun) you travel the round of the earth, and behold all the iniquities under the heavens! You are much a fuperior genius to me in rambling: you, like a pigeon (to which I would fooner compare a Lawyer than to a Hawk) can fly fome hundred leagues at a pitch; I, like a poor squirrel, am continually in motion indeed, but it is about a cage of three feet: my little excurfions are but like those of a shop-keeper, who walks every day a mile or two before his own door, but minds his business all the while. Your letter of the cause lately before you, VOL. IV. I could

L

Y

I could not but communicate to fome ladies of your acquaintance. I am of opinion, if you continued a correfpondence of the fame fort during a whole Circuit, it could not fail to please the fex, better than half the novels they read; there would be in them what they love above all things, a moft happy union of Truth and Scandal. I affure you the Bath affords nothing equal to it: it is on the contrary full of grave and fad men, Mr. Baron S. Lord Chief Juftice A. Judge P. and Counsellor B. who has a large pimple on the tip of his nofe, but thinks it inconfiftent with his gravity to wear a patch, notwithftanding the precedent of an eminent Judge. I am, dear Sir,

Your, &c.

LETTER X.

To the Earl of BURLINGTON.

MY LORD,

IF your Mare could speak, she would give an account of what extraordinary company fhe had on the road; which fince fhe cannot do, I will.

It was the enterprizing Mr. Lintot, the redoubtable rival of Mr. Tonfon, who, mounted on a stone-horse (no difagreeable companion to your Lordship's mare) overtook me in Windfor-foreft. He said, he heard I defign'd for Oxford, the feat of the Mufes, and would, as my bookfeller, by all means accompany me thither.

I afk'd him where he got his horfe? He anfwer'd, he got it of his Publisher: "For that rogue, my Printer (faid he) disappointed me: I hoped to put him in "good humour by a treat at the tavern, of a brown fri"caffee of rabbits, which coft two fhillings, with two 66 quarts of wine, befides my converfation, I thought

myfelf cockfure of his horfe, which he readily promis'd "me, but faid that Mr. Tonfon had just fuch another " defign of going to Cambridge, expecting there the copy of a new kind of Horace from Dr,; and if