letters, very different from thofe which have been collected in this volume. They are filled indeed (efpecially in the correfpondence between Swift and Pope) with the ftrongeft expreffions of mutual efteem; but thofe expreffions are repeated too often. When friendship has fubfifted fo long the time cannot increase, nor words improve it, the commerce of affection between friends ought to be carried on in a ftyle that neither finks below politenefs, nor rifes into forced compliments.. I cannot avoid obferving the epiftolary conciseness that was in fashion among the ancients, especially their conclufive fentences, Vale; or again, Si valeas, bene eft; valeo; which I own feems preferable to our method of loading every letter with compliments, not only to wives and children, but to uncles, aunts, and coufins: and, of confequence, every relation that is not particularly named, is particularly affronted. It will appear too minute a criticifm to affirm, that the English language is not well adapted for epiftolary writings. Be that as it may, it is certainly inferior to the French; which engages, and perhaps improves us by a fucceffive flow of phrafes that are peculiar to that nation. Madame de Sevigne has filled four volumes of letters, all addreffed to her daughter they contain nothing, except different scenes of maternal fondness: yet, like a claffic, the oftener they are read, the more they are relished. Monfieur de Peliffon has published three volumes of letters, which he calls Lettres hiftoriques, and which are little elfe than materials for a gazette. They inform us at what time the Grand Monarque arofe, when he went to bed, at what hour he dined, and what he faid while he was at fupper: yet all these trifles are told in fo agreeable a manner, and appear fo natural and eafy, that I can scarce think the skill of Ovid greater, who, in his Fafti, has turned the Roman calendar into elegant poetry,

and

and has verfified a fet of old almanacks. I need not mention Voiture, or Balzac ; and perhaps it was wrong to turn aside into the Roman and the French territories, when I ought to have confined myself to the British islands. But I love to wander about with you, and, in writing as in walking, to peep. into every corner that may afford us entertainment.

LETTERS

NOT OT to trouble you at prefent with a recital of all my obligations to you, I fhall only mention two things, which I take particularly kind of you; your defire that I fhould write to you; and your propofals of giving me twenty guineas to change my religion which last you must give me leave to make the fubject of this letter.

Sure, no clergyman ever offered fo much out of his own purse for the fake of any religion. 'Tis almoft as many pieces of gold, as an apoftle could get of filver from the priests of old, on a much more valuable confideration. I believe it will be better worth my while to propofe a change of my faith by fubfcription, than a tranflation of Homer. And to convince you how well difpofed I am to the reformation, I fhall be content, if you can prevail

*This letter was wrote by Mr. Pope in anfwer to one from Dr. Swift, wherein he had jocofely made an offer to his friend of a fum of money, ex caufa religimis, or, in plain English, to induce Mr. Pope to change his religion. Orrery. It was never inferted in any former edition of Swift's works.

with my Lord Treasurer and the miniftry to rife to the fame fum, each of them, on this pious account, as my Lord Halifax has done in the profane one. I am afraid there is no being at once a poet and a good Chriftian; and I am very much ftraitened between two, while the Whigs feem willing to contribute as much, to continue me the one, as you would, to make me the other. But if you can move every man in the government, who has above ten thousand pounds a-year, to subscribe as much as yourself, I fhall become a convert, as moft men do, when the Lord turns it to my intereft. I know they have the truth of religion fo much at heart, that they'd certainly give more to have one good fubject tranflated from Popery to the church of England, than twenty Heathenish authors out of any unknown tongue into ours. I therefore commiffion you, Mr. DEAN, with full authority, to tranfact this affair in my name, and to propose as follows. First, That as to the head of our church, the Pope, I may engage to renounce his power, whenfoever I fhall receive any particular indulgences from the head of your church, the Queen.

As to communion in one kind, I fhall alfo promife to change it for communion in both, as foon as the miniftry will allow me.

For invocations to faints, mine fhall be turned to dedications to finners, when I fhall find the great ones of the world as willing to do me any good, as I believe thofe of the other are.

You fee I fhall not be obftinate in the main points. But there is one article I must reserve, and which you feemed not unwilling to allow me, prayer for the dead. There are people to whofe fouls I with as well as to my own; and I muft crave leave humbly to lay before them, that though the fubfcriptions above mentioned will fuffice for myself, there are neceffary perquifites and additions, which

I muft demand on the score of this charitable article. It is alfo to 'be confidered, that the greater part of those whole fouls I am moft concerned for, were unfortunately heretics, fchifmatics, poets, painters, or perfons of fuch lives and manners, as few or no churchers are willing to fave. The expence will therefore be the greater to make an effectual provifion for the faid fouls.

Old Dryden, though a Roman Catholic, was a poet; and it is revealed in the vifions of fome ancient faints, that no poet was ever faved under fome hundred of maffes. I cannot fet his delivery from purgatory at lefs than fifty pounds Sterling.

Walth was not only a Socinian, but (what you'll own is harder to be faved) a Whig. He cannot modeftly be rated at less than an hundred.

L'Eftrange, being a Tory, we compute him bu at twenty pounds; which I hope no friend of the party can deny to give, to keep him from damning in the next life, confidering they never gave him fixpence to keep him from ftarving in this.

All this together amounts to one hundred and feventy pounds.

In the next place, I must defire you to reprefent, that there are feveral of my friends yet living, whom I defign, God willing, to outlive, in confideration of legacies; out of which it is a doctrine in the reformed church, that not a farthing shall be allowed to fave their fouls who gave them.

There is one **** who will die within these few months, with ****** one Mr. Jervas, who hath grievously offended in making the likeness of almoft all things in heaven above and earth below; and one Mr. Gay, an unhappy youth, who writes paftorals during the time of divine fervice; whofe cafe is the more deplorable, as he hath miferably lavished away all that filver he should have referved for his foul's health, in buttons and loops for his

coat.

I cannot