man-ufher, yet ferves in both capacities. He hath published several reasons why he never came to fee me; but the beft is, that I have not waited on his Lordship. We have had a poem fent from London, in imitation of that on Mifs Carteret. It is on Mifs Harvey, of a day old; and we say and think it is your's. I wish it were not, because I am against monopolies.You might have spared me a few more lines of your satire, but I hope in a few months to fee it all. To hear boys like you talk of millenniums and tranquillity! I am older by thirty years, Lord Bolingbroke by twenty, and you but by ten, than when we laft were together; and we fhould differ more thanever; you coquetting a maid of honour, my Lord looking on to fee how the gamefters play, and I railing at you both. I defire you and all my friends will take a fpecial care, that my difaffection to the world may not be imputed to my age; for I have credible witneffes ready to depofe, that it hath never varied from the twenty-firft to the f--ty-eighth year of my life, (pray fill that blank charitably). I tell you, after all, that I do not hate mankind: It is vous autres who hate them, because you would have them reasonable animals, and are angry at being difappointed. I have always rejected that definition, and made another of my own. I am no more angry with than

I was with the kite that last week flew away with one of my chickens; and yet I was pleased when one of my fervants fhot him two days after. This:

I fay, because you are fo hardy as to tell me of your intentions to write maxims in oppofition to Rochefoucault, who is my favourite, becaufe I found my whole character in him*: However, I will read him again, becaufe it is poffible I may have fince undergone fome alteration. Take care the bad poets do not out-wit you, as they have ferved the good ones in every age, whom they have provoked to tranfmit their names to pofterity. Mævius is as well known as Virgil; and Gildon will be as well known as you, if his name gets into your verfes: And as to the difference between good and bad fame, 'tis a perfect trifle. I ask a thousand pardons, and fo leave you for this time, and will write again, without concerning myfelf whether you write or no.

I am, &c.

I

LETTER

CCCXLIX.

Dec. 10. 1725.

FIND myfelf the better acquainted with you for a long abfence, as men are with themfelves for a long affliction. Abfence does but hold off a friend, to make one fee him the more truly. I am infinitely more pleased to hear you are coming near us, than at any thing you feem to think in my favour; an opinion which has perhaps

* This, methinks, is no great compliment to his own heart. War.

perhaps been aggrandifed by the distance or dulnefs of Ireland, as objects look larger through a medium of fogs: And yet I am infinitely pleased with that too. I am much the happier for (finding a better thing than our wits) our judgments jump in the notion, that all fcribblers should be paffed by in filence. To vindicate one's felf against fuch nafty flander, is much as wife as it was in your countryman, when the people imputed a ftink to him, to prove the contrary by fhewing his back-fide. So let Gildon and Philips reft in peace! What had Virgil to do with Mavius, that he fhould wear him upon his fleeve to all eternity, I don't know. I have been the longer upon this, that I may prepare you for the reception both you and your works may poffibly meet in England. We, your true acquaintance, will look upon you as a good man, and love you; others will look upon you as a wit, and hate you. So you know the worft; unless you are as vindictive as Virgil, or the aforefaid Hibernian.

I wish as warmly as you for an hospital, in which to lodge the defpifers of the world; only I fear it would be filled wholly like Chelfea, with maimed foldiers, and fuch as had been disabled in its fervice. I would rather have thofe, that, out of fuch generous principles as you and I, defpife it, fly in its face, then retire from it. Not that I have much anger against the great; my fpleen is at the little rogues of it. It would vex

one

one more to be knocked on the head with a pifs-pot, than by a thunder-bolt. As to great oppreffors, they are like kites or eagles; one expects mifchief from them: But to be fquirted to death (as poor Wycherly faid to me on his death-bed) by apothecaries apprentices, by the under-strappers of under-fecretaries to secretaries who were no fecretaries, this would provoke as dull a dog as Ph-s himself.

So much for enemies: Now for friends. Mr L- thinks all this indifcreet: The Doctor not fo; he loves mischief the best of any goodnatured man in England. Lord B. is above trifling. When he writes of any thing in this world, he is more than mortal: If ever he trifles, it must be when he turns a divine. Gay is writing tales for Prince William. I fuppofe Mr Philips will take this very ill, for two reasons; one, that he thinks all childifh things belong to him; and the other, because he'll take it ill to be taught, that one may write things to a child without being childish. What have I more to add, but that Lord Oxford defires earnestly to fee you; and that many others, whom you do not think the worst of, will be gratified by it? None more, be affured, than

Your's, &c.

P. S. Pope and you are very great wits, and, I think, very indifferent philofophers. If you defpife the world as much as you pretend, and

perhaps

perhaps believe, you would not be fo angry with it. The founder of your fect, that noble original whom you think it fo great an honour to resemble *, was a flave to the worst part of the world, to the Court; and all his big words were the language of a flighted lover, who defired nothing fo much as a reconciliation, and feared nothing fo much as a rupture. I believe the the world hath ufed me as fcurvily as moft people; and yet I could never find in my heart to be thoroughly angry with the fimple, false, capricious thing. I should blush alike, to be difcovered fond of the world, or piqued at it. Your definition of animal rationis capax, instead of the common one animal rationale, will not bear examination. Define but reafon, and you will fee why your diftinction is no better than that of the pontiff Cotta, between mala ratio and bona ratio. But enough of this. Make us a vifit, and I'll fubfcribe to any fide of thefe important queftions which you pleafe. We differ less than you imagine perhaps, when you wifhed me banifhed again: But I am not lefs true to you, and to philofophy in England, than I was in France.

Your's, &c.

B.

* Seneca.

I

LET