Bishop of Rochester to Alexander Pope-Written from the Tower. VII.-WRITTEN FROM THE TOWER. Bishop of Rochester to Alexander Pope. THE TOWER, April 10th, 1723. DEAR SIR: I thank you for all the instances of your friendship, both before and since my misfortunes. A little time will complete them, and separate you and me for ever. But in what part of the world soever I am, I will live mindful of your sincere kindness to me, and will please myself with the thought that I still live in your esteem and affection, as much as ever I did, and that no accidents of life, no distance of time, or place, will alter you in that respect. It never can me, who have loved and valued you ever since I knew you, and shall not fail to do it when I am not allowed to tell you so, as the case will soon be. Give my faithful services to Dr. Arbuthnot, and thanks for what he sent me, which was much to the purpose, if any thing can be said to be to the purpose in a case that is already determined. Let him know my defence will be such, that neither my friends need blush for me, nor will my enemies have great occasion to triumph, though sure of the victory. I shall want his advice before I go abroad, in many things; but I question whether I shall be permitted to see him, or anybody, but such as are absolutely necessary towards the dispatch of my private affairs. If so, God bless you both; and may no part of the ill fortune that attends me ever pursue either of you! I know not but I may call upon you at my hearing to say something about my way of spending my time at the deanry, which did not seem calculated towards managing plots and conspiracies. But of that I shall consider. You and I have spent many hours together upon much pleasanter subjects, and, that I may preserve the old custom, I shall not Alexander Pope to the Bishop of Rochester.-In Answer. part with you now till I have closed this letter, with three lines of Milton, which you will, I know, readily, and not without some degree of concern apply to your ever affectionate, etc. "Some nat❜ral tears he dropt, but wip'd them soon: The world was all before him, where to choose His place of rest, and Providence his guide." VIII.-IN ANSWER. Alexander Pope to the Bishop of Rochester. April 20th, 1723. But It is not possible to express what I think, and what I feel; only this, that I have thought and felt for nothing but you for some time past, and shall think of nothing so long for the time to come. The greatest comfort I had was an intention (which I would have made practicable) to have attended you in your journey, to which I had brought that person to consent who only could have hindered me, by a tie which, though it may be more tender, I do not think more strong than that of friendship. I fear there will be no way left me to tell you this great truth, that I remember you, that I love you, that I am grateful to you, that I entirely esteem and value you; no way but that one which needs no open warrant to authorize it, or secret conveyance to secure it; which no bills can preclude and no Kings prevent; a way that can reach to any part of the world where you may be; where the very whisper, or even the wish, of a friend must not be heard, or even suspected. By this way I dare tell my esteem and affection of you, to your enemies in the gates, and you, and they, and their sons, may hear of it. You prove yourself, my Lord, to know me for the friend I Alexander Pope to the Bishop of Rochester-In Answer. am, in judging that the manner of your defence, and your reputation by it, is a point of the highest concern to me, and assuring me it shall be such that none of your friends shall blush for you. Let me further prompt you to do yourself the best and most lasting justice; the instruments of your fame to posterity will be in your own hands. May it not be that Providence has appointed you to some great and useful work, and calls you to it this severe way? You may more eminently, and more effectually, serve the public even now, than in the stations you have so honorably filled. Think of Tully, Bacon, and Clarendon : is it not the latter, the disgraced part of their lives, which you most envy, and which you would choose to have lived? I am tenderly sensible of the wish you express, that no part of your misfortune may pursue me. But, God knows, I am every day less and less fond of my native country (so torn as it is by party rage), and begin to consider a friend in exile as a friend in death; one gone before, where I am not unwilling nor unprepared to follow after, and where (however various or uncertain the roads and voyages of another world may be) I cannot but entertain a pleasing hope that we may meet again. I faithfully assure you that in the mean time there is no one, living or dead, of whom I shall think oftener or better than of you. I shall look upon you as in a state between both, in which you will have from me all the passions and warm wishes that can attend the living, and all the respect and tender sense of loss that we feel for the dead. And I shall ever depend upon your constant friendship, kind memory, and good offices, though I * Clarendon, indeed, wrote his best works in his banishment, but the best of Bacon's were written before his disgrace, and the best of Tully's after his return from exile. The Bishop of Rochester to Alexander Pope-Feelings of an Exile. were never to see or hear the effects of them; like the trust we have in benevolent spirits, who, though we never see or hear them, we think are constantly serving us and praying for us. Whenever I am wishing to write to you, I shall conclude you are intentionally doing so to me, and every time that I think of you I will believe you are thinking of me. I never shall suffer to be forgotten (nay, to be but faintly remembered) the honor, the pleasure, the pride, I must ever have, in reflecting how frequently you have delighted me, how kindly you have distinguished me, how cordially you have advised me; in conversation, in study, I shall always want you, and wish for you; in my most lively, and in my most thoughtful hours, I shall equally bear about me the impressions of you; and perhaps it will not be in this life only that I shall have cause to remember and acknowledge the friendship of the Bishop of Rochester. I am, etc. IX.-FEELINGS OF AN EXILE. The Bishop of Rochester to Alexander Pope. PARIS, Nov. 23, 1731. You will wonder to see me in print; but how could I avoid it? The dead and the living, my friends and my foes, at home and abroad, called upon me to say something, and the reputation of an* history, which I and all the world value, must have suffered had I continued silent. I have printed it here, in hopes that somebody may venture to reprint it in England, notwithstanding these two frightening words at the close of it.† *Earl of Clarendon's. The Bishop's name, set to his vindication of Bishop Smalridge, Dr. Aldrich, and himself, from the scandalous reflections of Oldmixon, relating to The Bishop of Rochester to Alexander Pope-Feelings of an Exile. Whether that happens or not, it is fit you should have a sight of it, who, I know, will read it with some degree of satisfaction, as it is mine, though it should have (as it really has) nothing else to recommend it. Such as it is, Extremum hoc munus morientis habeto; for that may well be the case, considering that within a few months I am entering into my seventieth year, after which even the healthy and the happy cannot much depend upon life, and will not, if they are wise, much desire it. Whenever I go you will lose a friend who loves and values you extremely, if in my circumstauces I can be said to be lost to any one, when dead, more than I am already whilst living. I expected to have heard from you by Mr. Morice, and wondered a little that I did not; but he owns himself in a fault for not giving you due notice of his motions. It was not amiss that you forbore writing on a head wherein I promised more than I was able to perform. Disgraced men fancy sometimes that they preserve an influence, where, when they endeavor to exert it, they soon see their mistake. I did so, my good friend, and acknowledge it under my hand. You sounded the coast and found out my error, it seems, before I was aware of it. But enough on this subject. What are they doing in England to the honor of letters, and particularly what are you doing? Ipse quid audes? Quæ circumvolitas agilis Thyma? Do you pursue the moral plan you marked out, and seemed sixteen months ago so intent upon? Am I to see it perfected ere I die, and are you to enjoy the reputation of it while you live? or do you rather choose to leave the marks of your friendship, like the legacies of a will, to be read and enjoyed only by those who survive you? Were I as near the publication of Lord Clarendon's history. Paris, 1731, 4to, since reprint ed in England. |