I did not know your Odyffey was finished, being yet in the country, which I fhall leave in three days. I thank you kindly for the prefent, but shall like it three fourths the lefs, from the mixture you mention of other hands; however, I am glad you fav'd yourself fo much drudgery--I have been long told by Mr. Ford of your great atchievements in building and planting, and especially of your fubterranean paffage to your garden, whereby you turned a blunder into a beauty, which is a piece of Ars Poetica.

I have almost done with Harridans, and fhall foon become old enough to fall in love with girls of fourteen. The lady whom you defcribe to live at court, to be deaf, and no party-woman, I take to be Mythology, but know not how to moralize it. She cannot be Mercy, for Mercy is neither deaf, nor lives at court: Juftice is blind, and perhaps deaf, but neither is the a court-lady: fortune is both blind and deaf, and a court-lady, but then she is a most damnable party-woman, and will never make me easy, as you promise. It must be Riches which answers all your you, but defcription: I am glad fhe vifits is fo weak, that I doubt she will never hear me. Mr. Lewis fent me an account of Dr. Arbuthnot's illness, which is a very sensible affliction to me, who by living so long out of the world, have loft that hardness of heart contracted by years and general converfation. I am daily lofing friends, and neither feeking nor getting others. Oh if the world had but a dozen Arbuthnot's in it, I would burn my travels! but however he is not without

my

voice

fault:

age,

fault there is a paffage in Bede, highly commending the piety and learning of the Irish in that where, after abundance of praises, he overthrows them all, by lamenting that alas! they kept Eafter at a wrong time of the year. So our doctor has every quality and virtue that can make a man amiable or useful; but alas, he hath a fort of flouch in his walk! I pray God protect him, for he is an excellent Christian though not a Catholick.

I hear nothing of our friend Gay, but I find the court keeps him at hard meat. I advised him to come over here with a lord-lieutenant. Philips writes little flams (as lord Leicester call'd thofe fort of verfes) on mifs Carteret. A Dublin blacksmith, a great poet, has imitated his manner in a poem to the fame Mifs. Philips is a complainer, and on this occafion I told lord Carteret, that complainers never fucceed at court, though railers do.

Are you altogether a country gentleman? that I muft addrefs to you out of London, to the hazard of your lofing this precious letter, which I will now conclude although fo much paper is left. I have an ill name, and therefore fhall not fubfcribe it, but you will guefs it comes from one who esteems and loves you about half as much as you deserve, I mean as much as he can.

I am in great concern, at what I am just told is in fome of the news-papers, that lord Bolingbroke is much hurt by a fall in hunting. I am glad he has so much youth and vigour left, (of which he has not been thrifty) but I wonder he has no more difcretion.

Mr.

Mr. POPE to Dr. SwIFT.

Oct. 15, 1725.

I

draw

Am wonderfully pleas'd with the fuddennefs of your kind anfwer. It makes me hope you are coming towards us, and that you incline more and more to your old friends, in proportion as you nearer to them; and are getting into our vortex. Here is one*, who was once a powerful planet, but has now (after long experience of all that comes of fhining) learn'd to be content with returning to his first point, without the thought or ambition of fhining at all. Here is another, who thinks one of the greatest glories of his father was to have distinguish'd and lov'd you, and who loves you hereditarily. Here is Arbuthnot, recovered from the jaws of death, and more pleas'd with the hope of feeing you again, than of reviewing a world, every part of which he has long defpis'd, but what is made up of a few men like yourself. He goes abroad again, and is more chearful than even health can make a man, for he has a good confcience into the bargain, which is the most catholick of all remedies, tho' not the most univerfal. I knew it wou'd be a pleasure to you to hear this, and in truth that made me write fo foon to you.

I'm forry poor P. is not promoted in this age; for certainly if his reward be of the next, he is of all poets the most miferable. I'm alfo forry for an

Lord Bolingbroke.

other

other reason; if they don't promote him, they'll fpoil the conclufion of one of my fatires, where having endeavour'd to correct the taste of the town in wit and criticifm, I end thus,

But what avails to lay down rules for fenfe?
In's reign thefe fruitless lines were writ,
When Ambrofe Philips was preferr'd for Wit!

Our friend Gay is ufed as the friends of tories are by whigs, and generally by tories too. Because he

*

had humour, he was fuppos'd to have dealt with Dr. Swift; in like manner as when any one had learning formerly, he was thought to have dealt with the devil. He puts his whole truft at court in that lady whom I defcrib'd to you, and whom you take to be an allegorical creature of fancy: I wish she really were riches for his fake; tho' as for yours, I question whether (if you knew her) you would change her for the other?

Lord Bolingbroke had not the leaft harm by his fall, I wish he had receiv'd no more by his other fall; lord Oxford had none by his. But lord Bolingbroke is the most improved mind fince you faw him, that ever was improved without shifting into a new body, or being: +paullo minus ab angelis. I have often imagined to my felf, that if ever all of us meet again, after fo many varieties and changes; after fo much of the old world and of the old man in each of us has been

* Mrs. Howard. + A little lower than angels.

alter'd,

alter'd, that scarce a fingle thought of the one, any more than a fingle atome of the other, remains just the fame; I've fancy'd, I fay, that we should meet like the righteous in the Millenium, quite in peace, divested of all our former paffions, fmiling at our paft follies, and content to enjoy the kingdom of the juft in tranquility. But I find you would rather be employ'd as an avenging angel of wrath, to break your vial of indignation over the heads of the wretched creatures of this world; nay would make them eat your book, which you have made (I doubt not) as bitter a pill for them as possible.

I won't tell you what defigns I have in my head (befide writing a fet of maxims in oppofition to all Rochefoucault's principles) till I fee you here, face to face. Then you shall have no reason to complain of me, for want of a generous difdain of this world, tho' I have not loft my ears in yours and their fervice. Lord Oxford too (whom I have now the third time mention'd in this letter, and he deferves to be always mention'd in every thing that is addrest to you, or comes from you) expects you: That ought to be enough to bring you hither; 'tis a better reason than if the nation expected you. For I really enter as fully as you can defire, into your principle of love of individuals: and I think the way to have a publick spirit, is first to have a private one; for who can belive (faid a friend of mine) that any man can care for a hundred thousand people, who never cared for one? No ill-humour'd man can ever be a patriot, any more than a friend.