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BOOK THE SECOND.

Letters of Pleasantry, Sentiment, and Fancy.

9

BOOK THE SECOND.

LETTERS OF PLEASANTRY, SENTIMENT, AND FANCY.

I.-LIFE OF A MAID OF HONOR AT COURT.

Alexander Pope to Teresa and Martha Blount.*

You cannot be surprised to find him a dull correspondent whom you have known so long for a dull companion. And though I am pretty sensible, if I have any wit, I may as well write to show it as not; yet I will content myself with giving

* This letter, although belonging more appropriately to the first book, has been introduced here, in connection with many others of Pope, that the reader might be able more readily to form a just estimate of this celebrated correspondence. As it is the fashion to depreciate Pope's letters, the editor may be pardoned for introducing a long extract from Thackeray. "With the exception of his love letters, I do not know," says Thackeray, "in the range of our literature, volumes more delightful than the Pope correspondence. You live in them in the finest company in the world. A little stately, perhaps, a little apprêté, and conscious that they are speaking to whole generations who are listening; but in the tone of their voices, pitched, as no doubt they are, beyond the mere conversation key, in the expression of their thoughts, their various views and natures, there is something generous, and cheering, and ennobling. You are in the society of men who have filled the greatest parts in the world's story-you are with St. John, the statesman; Peterborough, the conqueror; Swift, the greatest wit of all times; Gay, the kindliest laugher it is a privilege to sit in that company. Delightful and generous banquet! with a little faith and a little fancy, any one of us here may enjoy it, and conjure up those great figures out of the past and listen to their wit and wisdom. Mind that there is always a certain cachet about great men, they

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Alexander Pope to Teresa and Martha Blount-Life of a Maid of Honor at Court.

you as plain a history of my pilgrimage as Purchas himself, or as John Bunyan could do of his walking through the wilderness of this world.

First, then, I went by water to Hampton Court, unattended

may be as mean on many points as you or I, but they carry their great air; they speak of common life more largely and generously than common men do, they regard the world with a manlier countenance and sce its real features more fairly than the timid shufflers who only dare to look up at life through blinkers, or to have an opinion when there is a crowd to back it; he who reads these noble records of a past age, salutes and reverences the great spirits who adorn it. You may go home now and talk with St. John; you may take a volume from your library and listen to Swift and Pope.

"Might I give counsel to any young hearer I would say to him, try to frequent the company of your betters. In books and life that is the most wholesome society; learn to admire rightly, the great pleasure of life is that. Note what the great men admired: they admired great things; narrow spirits admire basely, and worship meanly. I know nothing in any story more gallant and cheering than the love and friendship which this company of famous men bore toward one another. There never has been a society of men more friendly, as there never was one more illustrious. Who dared quarrel with Mr. Pope, great and famous himself, for liking the society of men great and famous-and for liking them for the qualities which made them so? A mere pretty fellow from White's could not have written the 'Patriot King,' and would very likely have despised little Mr. Pope, the decrepit Papist, whom St. John held to be one of the best and greatest of men. A mere nobleman of the Court could no more have won Barcelona than he could have written Peterborough's letters to Pope, which are as witty as Congreve's; a mere Irish dean could not have written Gulliver; and all these men loved Pope, and Pope loved all these men. To name his friends is to name the best men of his time. Addison had a senate; Pope reverenced his equals. He spoke of Swift with respect and admiration always.

"His admiration for Bolingbroke was so great that when some one said of his friend, 'There is something in that great man which looks as if he was placed here by mistake.' 'Yes,' Pope answered, 'and when the comet appeared to us a month or two ago, I had sometimes an imagination that it might possibly be come to carry him home, as a coach comes to one's door for visitors.' So these great spirits spoke of one another. Show me six of the dullest middle-aged gentlemen that ever dawdled round a club-table, so faithful and so friendly."-H.

Alexander Pope to Teresa and Martha Blount-Life of a Maid of Honor at Court.

by all but my own virtues, which were not of so modest a nature to keep themselves or me concealed; for I met the Prince with all his ladies on horseback coming from hunting. Mrs. B. and Mrs. L. took me into protection (contrary to the laws against harboring Papists), and gave me a dinner with something I liked better, an opportunity of conversation with Mrs. H. We all agreed that the life of a maid of honor was of all things the most miserable, and wished that every woman who envied it had a specimen of it. To eat Westphalian ham in a morning, ride over hedges and ditches in borrowed hacks, come home in the heat of the day with a fever, and, what is worse a hundred times, with a red mark on the forehead from an uneasy hat; all this may qualify them to make excellent wives for foxhunters, and bear abundance of ruddy-complexioned children. As soon as they can wipe off the sweat of the day they must simper an hour, and catch cold in the Princess's, from thence (as Shakespeare has it) to dinner, with what appetite they may, and after that till midnight, walk, work, or think, which they please. I can easily believe no lone house in Wales, with a mountain and a rookery, is more contemplative than this Court; and as a proof of it, I need only tell you Mrs. L. walked with me three or four hours by moonlight, and we met no creature of any quality but the King, who gave audience to the vicechamberlain all alone under the garden wall.

In short, I heard of no ball, assembly, basset-table, or any place where two or three were gathered together, except Madam Kilmansegg's; to which I had the honor to be invited and the grace to stay away.

* The three ladies referred to were Mary Bellenden and Mary Lepell, maids of honor to the Princess, and Mrs. Howard, afterwards Countess of Suffolk. It was usual at the time to call unmarried ladies Mistress.

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