Alexander Pope to Edward Blount-Humor of Wycherley in his Last Illness.

I was heartily tired, and posted to Park; there we had an excellent discourse of quackery; Dr. S― was mentioned with honor. Lady walked a whole hour abroad without dying after it, at least in the time I stayed, though she seemed to be fainting, and had convulsive motions several times in her head. I arrived in the forest by Tuesday noon, having fled from the face (I wish I could say the horned face) of Moses, who dined in the midway thither. I passed the rest of the day in those woods, where I have so often enjoyed a book and a friend. I made a hymn as I passed through, which ended with a sigh I will not tell you the meaning of.

Your doctor is gone the way of all his patients, and was hard put to it how to dispose of an estate miserably unwieldy, and splendidly unuseful to him. Sir Samuel Garth says, that for Radcliffe to leave a library, was as if a eunuch should found a seraglio.* Dr. S lately told a lady he wondered

she could be alive after him; she made answer, she wondered at it for two reasons, because Dr. Radcliffe was dead, and because Dr. S― was living. I am your, etc.

II.-HUMOR OF WYCHERLEY IN HIS LAST ILLNESS.

Alexander Pope to Edward Blount.

Jan. 21st, 1715-'16.

I know of nothing that will be so interesting to you at present, as some circumstances of the last act of that eminent comic poet, and our friend, Wycherley. He had often told me, as I doubt not he did all his acquaintance, that he would marry as soon as his life was despaired of; accordingly, a few days before

* It was notorious that he had little learning.

Alexander Pope to Edward Blount-Humor of Wycherley in his Last Illness.

his death, he underwent the ceremony; and joined together those two sacraments which, wise men say, should be the last we receive; for, if you observe, matrimony is placed after extreme unction in our Catechism, as a kind of hint of the order of time in which they are to be taken. The old man then lay down, satisfied in the conscience of having by this one act paid his just debts, obliged a woman, who (he was told) had merit, and shown an heroic resentment of the ill usage of his next heir. Some hundred pounds which he had with the lady discharged those debts; a jointure of four hundred a year made her a recompense; and the nephew he left to comfort himself as well as he could, with the miserable remains of a mortgaged estate. saw our friend twice after this was done, less peevish in his sickness than he used to be in his health; neither much afraid of dying, nor (which in him had been more likely) much ashamed of marrying. The evening before he expired he called his young wife to the bedside, and earnestly entreated her not to deny him one request, the last he should make. Upon her assurances of consenting to it, he told her, "My dear, it is only this, that you will never marry an old man again." I cannot help remarking, that sickness, which often destroys both wit and wisdom, yet seldom has power to remove that talent which we call humor: Mr. Wycherley showed this, even in this half compliment; though I think his request a little hard, for why should he bar her from doubling her jointure on the same easy terms?

So trivial as these circumstances are, I should not be displeased myself to know such trifles, when they concern or characterize any eminent person. The wisest and wittiest of men are seldom wiser or wittier than others in these sober moments;

Alexander Pope to Dr. Swift-Lord Bolingbroke's Life in the Country.

at least our friend ended much in the character he had lived in ;

and Horace's rule for a play may as well be applied to him as a playwright,

"Servetur ad imum,

Qualis ab inceptu processerit, et sibi constet."

I am,

&c.

III.-LORD BOLINGBROKE'S LIFE IN THE COUNTRY.

Alexander Pope to Dr. Swift.

DAWLEY, June 28th, 1728.

I now hold the pen for my Lord Bolingbroke, who is reading your letter between two haycocks; but his attention is somewhat diverted by casting his eyes on the clouds, not in admiration of what you say, but for fear of a shower. He is pleased with your placing him in the triumvirate, between yourself and me; though he says that he doubts he shall fare like Lepidus, while one of us runs away with all the power like Augustus, and another with all the pleasures like Anthony. It is upon a foresight of this that he has fitted up his farm, and you will agree that this scheme of retreat at least is not founded upon weak appearances. Upon his return from the bath all peccant humors, he finds, are purged out of him; and his great temperance and economy are so signal that the first is fit for my constitution, and the latter would enable you to lay up so much money as to buy a bishopric in England. As to the return of his health and vigor, were you here, you might inquire of his hay-makers; but as to his temperance, I can answer that (for one whole day) we have had nothing for dinner but mutton broth, beans and bacon, and a barn-door fowl.

Now his Lordship is run after his cart, I have a moment left

Dr. Swift to Lord Bolingbroke-Temper and Amusements of Swift.

to myself to tell you, that I overheard him yesterday agree with a painter for £200 to paint his country hall with trophies of rakes, spades, prongs, etc., and other ornaments, merely to countenance his calling this place a farm. Now turn over a new leafHe bids me assure you he should be sorry not to have more schemes of kindness for his friends than of ambition for himself; there, though his schemes may be weak, the motives at least are strong; and he says further, if you could bear as great a fall and decrease of your revenues, as he knows by experience he can, you would not live in Ireland an hour.

The Dunciad is going to be printed in all pomp, with the inscription which makes me proudest. It will be attended with Præme, Prolegomena, Testimonia Scriptorum, Index Authorum, and notes Variorum. As to the latter, I desire you to read over the text, and make a few in any way you like best,* whether dry raillery, upon the style and way of commenting of trivial critics; or humorous, upon the authors in the poem; or historical, of persons, of places, times; or explanatory; or collecting the parallel passages of the ancients. Adieu. I am pretty well, my mother not ill, Dr. Arbuthnot vexed with his fever by intervals; I am afraid he declines, and we shall lose a worthy man: I am troubled about him very much.

Am, etc.

IV.-TEMPER AND AMUSEMENTS OF SWIFT.

Dr. Swift to Lord Bolingbroke.

DUBLIN, March 21st, 1729.

You tell me you have not quitted the design of collecting, writing, etc. This is the answer of every sinner who defers his

Dr. Swift did so.

Dr. Swift to Lord Bolingbroke-Temper and Amusements of Swift.

repentance. I wish Mr. Pope was as great an urger as I, who long for nothing more than to see truth under your hands, laying all detraction in the dust. I find myself disposed every year, or rather every month, to be more angry and revengeful; and my rage is so ignoble, that it descends even to resent the folly and baseness of the enslaved people among whom I live. I knew an old lord in Leicestershire, who amused himself with mending pitchforks and spades for his tenants gratis. Yet I have higher ideas left, if I were nearer to objects on which I might employ them; and contemning my private fortune, would gladly cross the channel and stand by, while my betters were driving the boars out of the garden, if there be any probable expectation of such an endeavor. When I was of your age often thought of death, but now after a dozen years more, it is never out of my mind, and terrifies me less. I conclude that Providence hath ordered our fears to decrease with our spirits; and yet I love la bagatelle better than ever; for finding it troublesome to read at night, and the company here growing tasteless, I am always writing bad prose, or worse verses, either of rage or raillery, whereof some few escape to give offence or mirth, and the rest are burnt.

*

paper,

I

I

They print some Irish trash in London, and charge it on me, which you will clear me of to my friends, for all are spurious except one for which Mr. Pope very lately chid me. remember your lordship used to say, that a few good speakers would in time carry any point that was right; and that the common method of a majority, by calling, To the question, would never hold long, when reason was on the other side. Whether politics do not change like gaming, by the invention of new

* Entitled, Libel on Dr. Delany, and a certain great Lord.