for my own part, as a Papift, I would not pray them out of purgatory. My name is as bad an one as yours, and hated by all bad poets, from Hopkins and Sternhold to Gildon and Cibber. The firft prayed against me with the Turk, and a modern imitator of theirs (whom I leave you to find out) has added the Chriftian to them, with proper definitions of each, in this manner; The Pope's the whore of Babylon, I Should fooner have acknowledged yours, if feverish difordér, and the relics of it, had not difabled me for a fortnight. I now begin to make excufes, because I hope I am pretty near feeing you, and therefore I would cultivate an acquaintance; because if do not know me when we meet, you you need only keep one of my letters, and compare it with my face; for my face and letters are counter-parts of my heart. I fear I have not expreffed that right; but I mean well, and I hate blots. I look in your letter, and in my confcience you fay the fame thing, but in a better manner. Pray tell my Lord Bolingbroke, that I wish he were banished again; for then I fhould hear from him, when he was full of philofophy, and talked de contemptu mundi. mundi. My Lord Oxford was fo extremely kind as to write to me immediately an account of his fon's birth which I immediately acknowledged; but before my letter could reach him, I wifhed it in the fea. I hope I was more afflicted than his Lordship. 'Tis hard that parfons and beggars fhould be overrun with brats, while fo great and good a fami ly wants an heir to continue it. I have received his father's picture, but I lament (fub figilla confef fionis) that it is not fo true a refemblance as I could with. Drown the world! I am not content with defpifing it, but I would anger it, if I could with fafety. I wish there were an hofpital built for its defpifers, where one might act with fafety; and it need not be a large building, only I would have it well endowed. P** is fort chancellant, whether he fhall turn parfon or no. But all employments here are engaged, or in reverfion. Caft wits and caft beaux have a proper fanctuary in the church: yet we think it a fevere judgement, that a fine gentleman, and so much the finer for hating ecclefiaftics, fhould be a domeftic humble retainer to an Irish prelate. He is neither fecretary nor gentlemanufher, yet ferves in both capacities. He hath publifhed feveral reafons 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. on Mifs Hervey of a day old; and we fay and think it is yours. I wish it were not, because I am against monopolies. You might have fpared me a few more lines of your fatire, but I hope in a few months to fee it all. To hear boys like you talk of milleniums 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 than ever, you coquetting a maid of honour, my Lord looking on to fee how he gamefters play, and I railing at you both. I It is defire, with yet I was defire you and all my friends will take a special care, that my diffaffection 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 reafonable animals, and are angry at being disappointed. I have always rejected that definition, and made another of my own. I am no more angry than I was with the kite that last week flew with one of my chickens; and away pleafed when one of my fervants fhot him two days after This I fay, becaufe 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, because it is poffible I may have fince undergone fome alteration. Take care the bad poets do not outwit 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 afk 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. This methinks, is no great compliment to his own heart, Warb. LETTER 1 LETTER XV. Dec. 10. 1725. Find myself the better acquainted with you for a long abfence, as men are with themfelves for a long affliction. Absence does but hold off a friend, to make one see 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 been aggrandized 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 judgements jump in the notion, that all fcrib blers fhould 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 stink to him, to prove the contrary by fhewing his backtide. So let Gildon and Philips reft in peace! What Virgil had to do with Movius, that he should 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 vindicative as Virgil, or the aforefaid Hibernian. I wifh 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 Chelsea, with maimed I foldiers, 325 foldiers, and fuch as had been disabled in its fervice. I would rather have those that, out of fuch generous principles as you and I, defpife it, fly in its face, than 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 more to be knocked on the head with a pifs pot, than by a thunderbolt. As to great oppreffors, they are like kites or eagles; one expects mifchief from them: but to be fquirted to death (as poor Wycherly said to me on his deathbed) by apothecaries apprentices, by the under-ftrappers of under-fecretaries to fecretaries 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 so: he loves mifchief the best of any good-natured 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 reafons; one, that he thinks all childish 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 defpifed the world as much as you pretend, and 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 refemble *, was a flave |
