Alexander Pope to Mr. Steele-In Reply: Sends "The Dying Christian to his Soul."

you comply with this, and send me word so, you will very particularly oblige, Yours, etc.

VII.-IN REPLY: SENDS "THE DYING CHRISTIAN TO HIS SOUL.”

Alexander Pope to Mr. Steele.

I do not send you word I will do, but have already done the thing you have desired of me. You have it (as Cowley calls it) just warm from the brain. It came to me the first moment I awaked this morning: yet you will see it was not so absolutely inspiration, but that I had in my head not only the verses of Adrian, but the fine fragment of Sappho, etc.

[Then follows the familiar ode, beginning, "Vital spark of heavenly flame."]

VIII.-CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN SIR ISAAC NEWTON AND JOHN LOCKE.-NOBLE ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF WRONG.

Sir Isaac Newton to John Locke.

September 16th, 1693.

SIR: Being of opinion that you endeavored to embroil me with women, and by other means, I was so much affected with it as that when told me that you were sickly and would not live, I answered, ""Twere better if you were dead." I desire you to forgive this uncharitableness, for I am now satisfied that what you have done is just, and I beg your pardon for my having hard thoughts of you for it; and for representing that you struck at the root of morality, in a principle you laid down in your book of ideas, and designed to pursue in another book, and that I took

John Locke to Sir Isaac Newton-Magnanimous Forgiveness.

you for a Hobbist. I beg your pardon, also, for saying or thinking that there was a design to sell me an office or to embroil me. I am your most humble and unfortunate servant,

ISAAC NEWTON.*

IX.-MAGNANIMOUS FORGIVENESS.

John Locke to Sir Isaac Newton.

OATES, October 5th, 1693.

SIR: I have been, ever since I first knew you, so kindly and sincerely your friend, and thought you so much mine, that I could not have believed what you tell me of yourself, had I had it from anybody else. And though I cannot but be mightily troubled that you should have had so many wrong and unjust thoughts of me, yet next to the return of good offices, such as from a sincere good will I have ever done you, I receive your acknowledgment of the contrary as the kindest thing you could have done me, since it gives me hopes I have not lost a friend I so much valued. After what your letter expresses, I shall not need to say any thing to justify myself to you; I shall always think your own reflection on my carriage both to you and all mankind will sufficiently do that. Instead of that, give me leave to assure you that I am more ready to forgive you, than you can

*The contrition expressed in this letter, with a humility and candor characteristic of its great author, elicited the response in the text from Locke, than which, says Dugald Stewart, "he has left nothing behind him that does more honor to his temper and character. It is written with the magnanimity of a philosopher, and the good-humored forbearance of a man of the world; and it breathes throughout so tender and so unaffected a veneration for the good as well as great qualities of the excellent person to whom it is addressed, as demonstrates at once the conscious integrity of the writer, and the superiority of his mind to the irritation of little passions."-H.

Sir Isaac Newton to John Locke-In Reply.

be to desire it; and I do it so freely and fully, that I wish for nothing more than the opportunity to convince you that I truly love and esteem you; and that I still have the same good will for you as if nothing of this had happened. To confirm this to you more fully, I should be glad to meet you anywhere, and the rather because the conclusion of your letter makes me apprehend it would not be wholly useless to you. I shall always be ready to serve you to my utmost, in any way you shall like, and shall only need your commands or permission to do it.

My book is going to press for a second edition; and though I can answer for the design with which I writ it, yet since you have so opportunely given me notice of what you have said of it, I should take it as a favor if you would point out to me the places that gave occasion to that censure, that, by explaining myself better, I may avoid being mistaken by others, or unwillingly doing the least prejudice to truth or virtue. I am sure you are so much a friend to both, that were you none to me, I could expect this from you. But I cannot doubt you would do a great deal more than this for my sake, who, after all, have all the concern of a friend for you, wish you extremely well, and am with

out compliment, etc.

X.-IN REPLY.

Sir Isaac Newton to Mr. Locke.*

SIR: The last winter, by sleeping too often by my fire, I got an ill habit of sleeping, and a distemper which this summer has been epidemical put me further out of order, so that when 1

*Newton's reply shows that the aberrations into which he had been led, were to be referred to the influence of disordered health on his mental faculties.

Thomas Gray to Dr. Wharton-Gardening. Froissart. Tristram Shandy.

wrote to you I had not slept an hour a night for a fortnight, and for five days together not a wink. I remember I wrote to you, but what I said of your book I remember not. If you please to send me a transcript of that passage. I will give you an account of it, if I can. I am your most humble servant,

ISAAC NEWTON.

XI.-GARDENING--FROISSART-TRISTRAM SHANDY.

Thomas Gray to Dr. Wharton.

LONDON, June 22d, 1760.

I am not sorry to hear you are exceeding busy, except as it has deprived me of the pleasure I should have in hearing often from you; and as it has been occasioned by a little vexation and disappointment. To find one's self business I am persuaded is the great art of life; I am never so angry as when I hear my acquaintance wishing they had been bred to some poking profession, or employed in some office of drudgery, as if it were pleasanter to be at the command of other people than at one's own, and as if they could not go unless they were wound up; yet I know and feel what they mean by this complaint; it proves that some spirit, something of genius (more than common), is required to teach a man how to employ himself. I say a man, for women, commonly speaking, never feel this distemper; they have always something to do; time hangs not on their hands (unless they be fine ladies); a variety of small inventions and occupations fill up the void, and their eyes are never open in vain.

As to myself, I have again found rest for the sole of my gouty foot in your old dining-room, and hope that you will find

Thomas Gray to Dr. Wharton-Gardening. Froissart. Tristram Shandy.

at least an equal satisfaction at Old-Park; if your bog prove as comfortable as my oven, I shall see no occasion to pity you, and only wish you may brew no worse than I bake.

You totally mistake my talents, when you impute to me any magical skill in planting roses. I know I am no conjurer in these things; when they are done I can find fault, and that is all. Now this is the very reverse of genius, and I feel my own littleness. Reasonable people know themselves better than is commonly imagined, and therefore (though I never saw any instance of it) I believe Mason when he tells me that he understands these things. The prophetic eye of taste (as Mr. Pitt calls it) sees all the beauties that a place is susceptible of long before they are born, and when it plants a seedling already sits under the shadow of it, and enjoys the effect it will have from every point of view that lies in prospect. You must therefore invoke Caractacus, and he will send his spirits from the top of Snowdon to Cross-fell or Wardenlaw.

Froissart

I am much obliged to you for your antique news. is a favorite book of mine (though I have not attentively read him, but only dipped here and there), and it is strange to me that people who would give thousands for a dozen portraits (originals of that time) to furnish a gallery, should never cast an eye on so many moving pictures of the life, actions, manners, and thoughts of their ancestors, done on the spot, and in strong though simple colors. In the succeeding century Froissart, I find, was read with great satisfaction by everybody that could read, and on the same footing with King Arthur, Sir Tristram, and Archbishop Turpin; not because they thought him a fabulous writer, but because they took them all for true and authentic historians; to so little purpose was it in that age for a man to be