Ability. Contemplative life is not only my fcene, but it is my habit too. habit too. I begun my life where most people end theirs, with a dif relish of all that the world calls ambition: I don't know why 'tis called fo, for to me it always feem'd to be rather stooping than climbing. I'll tell you my politic and religious fentiments in a few words. In my politics, I think no further than how to preferve the peace of my life, in any government under which I live; nor in my religion, than to preferve the peace of my confcience, in any church with which I communicate. I hope all churches and all governments are fo far of God, as they are rightly understood, and rightly administred: and where they are, or may be wrong, I leave it to God alone to mend or reform them; which, whenever he does, it must be by greater inftruments than I am. I am not a Papift, for I renounce the temporal invafions of the papal power, and deteft their arrogated authority over Princes and States. I am a Catholic in the ftricteft fenfe of the word. If I was born under an abfolute prince, I would be a quiet fubje&t; but I thank God I was not. I have a due fenfe of the excellence of the British conftitution. In a word, the things I have always wifhed to fee are not a Roman Catholic, or a French Catholic, or a Spanish Catholic, but a true Catholic: and not a King of Whigs, or a King of Tories, but a King of England; which God of his mercy grant his prefent Majefty may be, and all future Majefties. You fee, my Lord, I end like a preacher: this is Sermo ad Clerum, not ad Populum. Believe me, with infinite obligation and fincere thanks, ever Your, &c. LETTER V. Sept. 23, 1720. 1 Hope you have fome time ago receiv'd the Sulphur, and the two volumes of Mr. Gay, as inftances (how fmall ones foever) that I wish you both health and diverfion. What I now fend for your perufal, I fhall fay nothing of; not to foreftal, by a fingle word, what you promis'd to fay upon that fubject. Your Lordship may criticise from Virgil to thefe Tales; as Solomon wrote of every thing from the cedar to the hyffop. I have fome caufe, fince I laft waited on you at Bromley, to look upon you as a prophet in that retreat, from whom oracles are to be had, were mankind wife enough to go thither to confult you: the fate of the South-fea fcheme has, much fooner than I expected, verify'd what you told me. Moft people thought the time would come, but no man prepared for it; no man confider'd it would come like a Thief in the Night, exactly VOL. IV. U as as it happens in the cafe of our death. Methinks God has punished the avaritious, as he often punishes finners, in their own way, in the very fin itfelf: the thirft of gain was their crime; that thirft continued, became their punifhment and ruin. As for the few who have the good fortune to remain with half of what they imagined they had (among whom is your humble fervant) I would have them fenfible of their felicity, and convinced of the truth of old Hefiod's maxim, who, after half his eftate was fwallowed by the Directors of those days, refolved, that haif to be more than the whole. Does not the fate of thefe people put you in mind of two paffages; one in Job, the other from the Pfalmift? Men fhall groan out of the CITY, and hifs them out of their PLACE. They have dreamed out their dream; and awakening, have found nothing in their hands. Indeed the univerfal poverty, which is the confequence of univerfal avarice, and which will fall hardest upon the guiltless and induftrious part of mankind, is truly lamentable. The univerfal deluge of the S. Sea, contrary to the old deluge, has drowned all, except a few Unrighteous men: but it is fome comfort to me that I am not one of them, even tho' I were to furvive and rule the world by it. I am much pleas'd with a thought of Dr. Arbuthnot's; he fays the government and South Sea company have only lock'd up the money of the people, upon conviction of their Lunacy (as is ufual in the cafe of Lunatics) and intend to restore them as much as may be fit for fuch people, as faft as they fhall fee them return to their fenfes. The latter part of your letter does me fo much honour, and thews me fo much kindness, that I muft both be proud and pleas'd, in a great degree; but I affure you, my Lord, much more the laft than the firft. For I certainly know, and feel, from my own heart, which truly refpects you, that there may be a ground for your partiality, one way; but I find not the leaft fymptoms in my head, of any foundation for the other. In a word, the best reason I know for my being pleas'd, is, that you continue your favour towards me; the beft I know for being proud, would be that you might cure me of it; for I have found you to be. fuch a phyfician, as does not only repair but improve. I am, with the fincereft efteem, and moft grateful acknowledgment, Your, &c. LET THE LETTER VI. From the Bishop of ROCHESTER. HE Arabian Tales, and Mr. Gay's books, I receiv'd not till Monday night, together with your letter; for which I thank you. I have had a fit of the gout upon me ever fince I returned hither from Westminster on Saturday night laft it has found its way into my hands as well as legs, fo that I have been utterly incapable of writing. This is the firft letter that I have ventured upon; which will be written, I fear, vacillantibus literis, as Tully fays, Tyro's letters were, after his recovery from an illness. What I faid to you in mine about the Monument, was intended only to quicken, not to alarm you. It is not worth your while to know what I meant by it; but when I fee you, you fhall. I hope you may be at the Deanry towards the end of October, by which time, I think of fettling there for the winter. What do you think of fome fuch fhort infcription as this in Latin, which may, in a few words, fay all that is to be faid of Dryden, and yet nothing more than he deferves ? JOHANNI DRYDEN O, CVI POESIS ANGLICAN A VIM SVAM AC VENERES DEBET; ET SIQVA IN POSTERVM AVGEBIT VR LAV DE, EST ADHVC DEBIT VRA: HONORIS ERGO P. etc. To fhew you that I am as much in earnest in the affair as you yourself, fomething I will fend you too of this kind in English. If your defign holds of fixing Dryden's name only below, and his Bufto above-may not lines like these be grav'd juft under the name? be This Sheffield rais'd, to Dryden's afhes juft, More needs not; where acknowledg'd Merits reign, This you'll take as a proof of my zeal at leaft, tho' it none of my talent in Poetry. When you have read it over, I'll forgive you if you should not once in your lifetime again think of it. U 2 And And now, Sir, for your Arabian Tales. Il as I have been, almost ever fince they came to hand, I have read as much of them, as ever I thall read while I live. Indeed they do not please my tafte: they are writ with fo romantic an air, and, allowing for the difference of Eaftern manners, are yet, upon any fuppofition that can be made, of fo wild and abfurd a contrivance (at least to my northern understanding) that I have not only no pleasure, but no patience, in perufing them. They are to me like the odd paintings on Indian fcreens, which at firft glance may furprize and pleafe a little; but when you fix your eye intently upon them, they appear fo extravagant, difproportioned, and monftrous, that they give a judicious eye pain, and make him feek for relief from fome other object. They may furnish the mind with fome new images; but I think the purchase is made at too great an expence : for to read thofe two volumes through, liking them as little as I do, would be a terrible penance; and to read them with pleasure, would be dangerous on the other fide, because of the infection. I will never believe that you have any keen relifh of them, till I find you write worse than you do, which, I dare fay, I never fhall. Who that Petit de la Croife is, the pretended author of them, I cannot tell : but obferving how full they are in the defcriptions of drefs, furniture, &c. I cannot help thinking them the product of fome Woman's imagination; and believe me, I would do any thing but break with you, rather than be bound to read them over with attention. I am forry that I was so true a prophet in respect of the S. Sea; forry, I mean, as far as your lofs is concern'd: for in the general I ever was, and ftill am of opinion, that had that project taken root and flourish'd, it would by degrees have overturn'd our conftitution. Three or four hundred millions was fuch a weight, that which-foever way it had leaned, must have borne down all before itBut of the dead we muft fpeak gently; and therefore, as Mr. Dryden fays fomewhere, Peace be to its Manes! Let me add one reflection, to make you eafy in your ill luck. Had you got all that you have loft beyond what you ventur'd, confider that your fuperfluous gains would have fprung from the ruin of feveral families that now want neceffaries; a thought, under which a good and good-natured man that grew rich by fuch means, could not, I perfuade myself, be perfectly eafy. Adieu, and believe me ever, Your, &c. LET LETTER VII. From the Bishop of ROCHESTER. March 26, 1721. γου are not yourself gladder you are well, than I am; efpecially fince I can please myself with the thought, that when you had loft your health elsewhere, you recovered it here. May thefe lodgings never treat you worse, nor you at any time have lefs reafon to be fond of them! I thank you for the fight of your* Verses; and with the freedom of an honeft, tho' perhaps injudicious friend, muft tell you, that tho' I could like fome of them, if they were any body's elfe but yours; yet as they are yours, and to be own'd as fuch, I can scarce like any of them. Not but that the four firft lines are good, especially the fecond couplet; and might, if followed by four others as good, give reputation to a writer of a less established fame; but from you I expect fomething of a more perfect kind, and which the oftener it is read, the more it will be admired. When you barely exceed other writers, you fall much beneath yourself: 'tis your misfortune now to write without a rival, and to be tempted by that means to be more careless, than you would otherwise be in your compofures. Thus much I could not forbear faying, tho' I have a motion of confequence in the Houfe of Lords to-day, and muft prepare for it. for it. I am even with you for your ill paper; for I write upon worfe, having no other at hand. I wifh you the continuance of your health most heartily; and am ever Your, &c. I have fent Dr. Arbuthnot the + Latin MS. which I could not find when you left me; and I am fo angry at the writer for his defign, and his manner of executing it, that I could hardly forbear fending him a line of Virgil along with it. The chief Reafoner of that philofophic farce is a Galla Ligur, as he is call'd-what that means in English or French, I can't fay-but all he fays, is in fo loofe and flippery and trickish a way of reafoning, that could not forbear applying the paffage of Virgil to him, Written by Huetius, bishop of Avranches. He was a mean reafoner; as may be feen by a vast collection of fanciful and extravagant conjectures, which he call'd a demonftration; mixed up with much reading, which his friend called learning, and delivered (by the allowance of all) in good Latin. This not being received for what he would give it, he compofed a treatife of the weaknefs of the buman understanding: a poor fyftem of fcepticism; indeed little other than an abstract from Sextus Empiricus, Vane ་ |