The to let me have you back the sooner. minute I lost you, Eustathius, with nine hundred pages and nine thousand contractions of the Greek characters, arose to view!, Spondanus, with all his auxiliaries, in number a thousand pages (value three shillings), and Dacier's three volumes, Barnes's two, Valterie's three, Cuperus, half in Greek, Leo Allatus, three parts in Greek, Scaliger, Macrobius, and (worse than them all) Aulus Gellius! All these rushed upon my soul at once, and whelmed me under a fit of the headache. I cursed them all religiously, damned my best friends among the rest, and even blasphemed Homer himself. Dear sir, not only as you are a friend and a goodnatured man, but as you are a Christian and a divine, come back speedily, and prevent the increase of my sins; for, at the rate I have begun to rave, I shall not only damn all the poets and commentators who have gone before me, but be damned myself by all who come after me. To be serious: you have not only left me to the last degree impatient for your return, who at all times should have been so, (though never so much as since I knew you in best health here), but you have wrought several miracles upon our family; you have made old people fond of a young and gay person, and inveterate papists of a clergyman of the Church of England; even Nurse herself is in danger of being in love in her old age, and (for all I know) would even marry Dennis for your sake, because he is your man, and loves his master. In short, come down forthwith, or give me good reasons for delaying, though but for a day or two, by the next post. If I find them just, I will come up to you, though you know how precious my time is at present; my hours were never worth so much money before: but perhaps you are not sensible of this, who give away your own works. You are a generous author; I a hackney scribbler: you a Grecian, and bred at a university; I a poor Englishman, of my own educating: you a reverend parson; I a wag: in short, you are Dr. Parnell (with an e at the end of your name), and I-Your most obliged and affectionate friend and faithful servant, "A. POPE. "My hearty service to the Dean, Dr Arbuthnot, Mr. Ford, and the true genuin shepherd, J. Gay, of Devon. I exper him down with you." Parnell was not a little necessary to Pet We may easily perceive by this th in conducting his translation; howeve he has worded it so ambiguously that its impossible to bring the charge direc against him. But he is much more exp when he mentions his friend Gay's ob tions in another letter, which he takes 10 pains to conceal. "DEAR SIR, -I write to you with the same warmth, the same zeal of good-will and friendship, with which I used to con verse with you two years ago, and can't think myself absent, when I feel you so much at my heart. The picture of you which Jervas brought me over is infinitely less lively a representation than that I carry about with me, and which rises to my mind whenever I think of you. I have many an agreeable reverie through those woods and downs where we ence rambled together: my head is sometries at the Bath, and sometimes at Letoh where the Dean makes a great par any imaginary entertainment, this being the cheapest way of treating me: I be he will not be displeased at this manne of paying my respects to him, instead lowing my friend Jervas's example, wh to say the truth, I have as much inc to do as I want ability. I have been ever since December last in greater variey of business than any such men as you is divines and philosophers) can pay imagine a reasonable creature capa Gay's play, among the rest, has cost h time and long-suffering, to stem at of malice and party that certain authors have raised against it: the best revenge such fellows is now in my hands-Iran your Zoilus, which really transcends the expectation I had conceived of it. I've put it into the press, beginning with the poem Batrachom; for you seem, by the first paragraph of the dedication to it, design to prefix the name of some particula person. I beg therefore to know for what you intend it, that the publication may be delayed on this account, and this on as is possible. Inform me also upon at terms I am to deal with the bookler, and whether you design the copy mey for Gay, as you formerly talked; at number of books you would have arself, &c. I scarce see anything to be ered in this whole piece; in the poems a sent I will take the liberty you allow The story of Pandora and the Eclogue on Health are two of the most beaual things I ever read. I do not say this the prejudice of the rest, but as I have these oftener. Let me know how my commission is to extend, and be dent of my punctual performance of atever you enjoin. I must add a parath on this occasion in regard to Mr. rd, whose verses have been a great sure to me. I will contrive they shall so to the world, whenever I can find a Der opportunity of publishing them. 'I shall very soon print an entire coltion of my own madrigals, which I kupon as making my last will and tament, since in it I shall give all I r intend to give (which I'll beg yours I the Dean's acceptance of). You must kon me no more a poet, but a plain amoner, who lives upon his own, and s and flatters no man. I hope, before Le, to discharge the debt I owe to ner, and get upon the whole just fame ngh to serve for an annuity for my a time, though I leave nothing to erity. I beg our correspondence may be more ment than it has been of late. I am sure esteem and love for you never more erved it from you, or more prompted m you. I desired our friend Jervas he greatest hurry of my business) to a great deal in my name, both to rself and the Dean, and must once repeat the assurances to you both in unchanging friendship and unalteresteem.—I am, dear sir, most entirely, affectionate, faithful, obliged friend servant, "A. POPE." rom these letters to Parnell we may Jude, as far as their testimony can go, he was an agreeable, a generous, and cere man. Indeed, he took care that riends should always see him to the best advantage; for, when he found his fits of spleen and uneasiness, which sometimes lasted for weeks together, returning, he returned with all expedition to the remote parts of Ireland, and there made out a gloomy kind of satisfaction, in giving hideous descriptions of the solitude to which he retired. It is said of a famous painter, that, being confined in prison for debt, his whole delight consisted in drawing the faces of his creditors in caricatura. It was just so with Parnell. From many of his unpublished pieces which I have seen, and from others that have appeared, it would seem that scarcely a bog in his neighbourhood was left without reproach, and scarcely a mountain reared its head unsung. "I can easily," says Pope, in one of his letters, in answer to a dreary description of Parnell's,-"I can easily image to my thoughts the solitary hours of your eremitical life in the mountains, from some parallel to it in my own retirement at Binfield:" and in another place, "We are both miserably enough situated, God knows; but of the two evils, I think the solitudes of the South are to be preferred to the deserts of the West." In this manner Pope answered him in the tone of his own complaints: and these descriptions of the imagined distress of his situation served to give him a temporary relief; they threw off the blame from himself, and laid upon fortune and accident a wretchedness of his own creating. But though this method of quarreling in his poems with his situation served to relieve himself, yet it was not easily endured by the gentlemen in the neighbourhood, who did not care to confess themselves his fellow-sufferers. He received many mortifications upon that account among them; for, being naturally fond of company, he could not endure to be without even theirs, which, however, among his English friends he pretended to despise. In fact, his conduct in this particular was rather splenetic than wise; he had either lost the art to engage, or did not employ his skill in securing those more permanent, though more humble, connections, and sacrificed for a month or two in England a whole year's happiness by his country fireside at home. However, what he permitted the world formance will please the Dean, whom to see of his life was elegant and splendid: often wished for, and to whom I woul his fortune (for a poet) was very consider- have often wrote, but for the same reas able, and it may be easily supposed he I neglected writing to you. I hope I ne lived to the very extent of it. The fact not tell you how I love you, and how zac is, his expenses were greater than his I shall be to hear from you, which, income, and his successor found the estate to the seeing you, would be the greasi somewhat impaired at his decease. As satisfaction to your most affectionate fr soon as ever he had collected in his annual and humble servant, “J. G. revenues, he immediately set out for England, to enjoy the company of his dearest friends, and laugh at the more prudent world that were minding business and gaining money. The friends to whom during the latter part of his life he was chiefly attached were Pope, Swift, Arbuthnot, Jervas, and Gay. Among these he was particularly happy, his mind was entirely at ease, and gave a loose to every harmless folly that came uppermost. deed, it was a society in which, of all others, a wise man might be most foolish, without incurring any danger or contempt. Perhaps the reader will be pleased to see a letter to him from a part of this junto, as there is something striking even in the levities of genius. It comes from Gay, Jervas, Arbuthnot, and Pope, assembled at a chophouse near the Exchange, and is as follows: In "MY DEAR SIR,-I was last summer in Devonshire, and am this winter at Mrs. Bonyer's. In the summer I wrote a poem, and in the winter I have published it, which I have sent to you by Dr. Elwood. In the summer I ate two dishes of toadstools of my own gathering, instead of mushrooms; and in the winter I have been sick with wine, as I am at this time, blessed be God for it! as I must bless God for all things. In the summer I spoke truth to damsels; in the winter I told lies to ladies. Now you know where I have been, and what I have done, I shall tell you what I intend to do the ensuing summer: I propose to do the same thing I did last, which was to meet you in any part of England you would appoint; don't let me have two disappointments. I have longed to hear from you, and to that intent I teased you with three or four letters; but, having no answer, I feared both yours and my letters might have miscarried. I hope my per DEAR MR. ARCHDEACON,-Thang my proportion of this epistle should a but a sketch in miniature, yet I take this half page, having paid my club wi the good company both for our dinner chops and for this paper. The poets w give you lively descriptions in their w I shall only acquaint you with that whi is directly my province. I have just s the last hand to a couplet, for solm: call two nymphs in one piece. Ther a Pope's favourites, and though few, yo will guess must have cost me more pair than any nymphs can be worth. He h. been so unreasonable as to expect that should have made them as beautifi upo canvas, as he has done upon paper. 1 this same Mr. P—should omit WTI for the dear frogs and the Forg I must entreat you not to let me langtis for them, as I have done ever sine the crossed the seas: remember by when lects, &c. we missed them when we le you, and therefore I have not yet fagive any of those triflers that let them scap and run those hazards. I am the old rate, and want you and the De prodigiously, and am in hopes of kin you a visit this summer, and of erin from you both, now you are the Fortescue, I am sure, will be corne that he is not in Cornhill, to set sham to these presents, not only as a woes but as a serviteur très humble, "C. JERVAS "It is so great an honour to a po Scotchman to be remembered at th of day, especially by an inhabitant af Glacialis Ierne, that I take it very that fully, and have, with my good fr remembered you at our table in the house in Exchange Alley. There wa nothing to complete our happines company, and our dear friend' the in's. I am sure the whole entertainit would have been to his relish. Gay got so much money by his Art of Iking the Streets, that he is ready to up his equipage; he is just going to bank to negotiate some exchange bills. Pope delays his second volume of his mer till the martial spirit of the rebels ute quelled, it being judged that the part did some harm that way. Our again and again to the dear Dean. sas Tories, I can say no more. "ARBUTHNOT." When a man is conscious that he does pod himself, the next thing is to cause s to do some. I may claim some this way, in hastening this testial from your friends above writing: love to you indeed wants no spur, ink wants no pen, their pen wants ind, their hand wants no heart, and orth (after the manner of Rabelais, h is betwixt some meaning and no ing); and yet it may be said, when nt thought and opportunity is wanttheir pens want ink, their hands want their hearts want hands, &c. till place, and conveniency concur to hem writing, as at present a sociable ing, a good dinner, warm fire, and sy situation do, to the joint labour leasure of this epistle. Wherein if I should say nothing I i say much (much being included love), though my love be such, if I should say much, I should yet othing, it being (as Cowley says) ly impossible either to conceal or to ss it. f I were to tell you the thing I wish all things, it is to see you again; ext is to see here your treatise of 5, with the Batrachomuomachia, he Pervigilium Veneris, both which 5 are masterpieces in several kinds; question not the prose is as exceln its sort as the Essay on Homer. ng can be more glorious to that author, than that the same hand aised his best statue, and decked it its old laurels, should also hang up arecrow of his miserable critic, and gibbet up the carcass of Zoilus, to the terror of the witlings of posterity. More, and much more, upon this and a thousand other subjects, will be the matter of my next letter, wherein I must open all the friend to you. At this time I must be content with telling you I am faithfully your most affectionate and humble servant, "A. POPE." If we regard this letter with a critical eye, we must find it indifferent enough; if we consider it as a mere effusion of friendship, in which every writer contended in affection, it will appear much to the honour of those who wrote it. To be mindful of an absent friend in the hours of mirth and feasting, when his company is least wanted, shows no slight degree of sincerity. Yet probably there was still another motive for writing thus to him in conjunction. The above-named, together with Swift and Parnell, had some time before formed themselves into a society, called the Scribblerus Club, and I should suppose they commemorated him thus, as being an absent member. Of It is past a doubt that they wrote many things in conjunction, and Gay usually held the pen. And yet I do not remember any productions which were the joint effort of this society as doing it honour. There is something feeble and quaint in all their attempts, as if company repressed thought, and genius wanted solitude for its boldest and happiest exertions. those productions in which Parnell had a principal share, that of the Origin of the Sciences from the Monkeys in Ethiopia is particularly mentioned by Pope himself, in some manuscript anecdotes which he left behind him. The Life of Homer also, prefixed to the translation of the Iliad, is written by Parnell, and corrected by Pope; and, as that great poet assures us in the same place, this correction was not effected without great labour. “It is still stiff," says he, "and was written still stiffer; as it is, I verily think it cost me more pains in the correcting, than the writing it would have done." All this may be easily credited; for every thing of Parnell's that has appeared in prose is written in a very awkward, inelegant |