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LETTER XIV.

To the Honourable Mrs.

June 20.

E cannot omit taking this occafion to congratulate you upon the increafe of your family, for your Cow is this morning very happily delivered of the better fort, I mean a female calf; fhe is as like her mother as fhe can ftare. All Knights Errants Palfreys were diftinguished by lofty names; we see no reason why a Paftoral Lady's fheep and calves fhould want names of the fofter found; we have therefore given her the name of Cæfar's wife, Calfurnia: imagining, that as Romulus and Remus were fuckled by a wolf, this Roman lady was fuckled by a cow, from whence The took that name. In order to celebrate this birth-day, we had a cold dinner at Marble-hill *. Mrs, Sufan offered us wine upon the occafion, and upon fuch an occafion we could not refuse it. Our entertainment confifted of flesh and fifh, and the lettuce of a Greek Ifland called Cos. We have fome thoughts of dining there to-morrow, to celebrate the day after the birth-day, and on Friday to celebrate the day after that, where we intend to entertain Dean Swift; because we think your hall the most delightful room in the world except that where you are. If it was not for you, we would forfwear all courts; and really it is the moft mortifying thing in nature, that we can neither get into the court to live with you, nor you get into the country to live with us; fo we will take up with what we can get that belongs to you, and make ourfelves as happy as we can in your houfe.

I hope we shall be brought into no worfe company, when you all come to Richmond: for whatever our friend Gay may wish as to getting into Court, I difclaim it, and defire to fee nothing of the court but yourfelf, being wholly and folely Your, etc.

LETTER XV.

July 21. YOU have the fame share in my memory that good things generally have; I always know (whenever I refic) you should be in my mind; only I reflect too feldom.

that

VOL. IV.

* Mrs. Howard's Houfe.

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However,

However, you ought to allow me the indulgence I allow all my friends (and if I did not, they would take it) in confideration that they have other avocations, which may prevent the proofs of their remembring me, though they preferve for me all the friendship and good-will which I deferve from them. In like manner I expect from you, that my past life of twenty years may be fet against the omiflion of (perhaps) one month: and if you complain of this to any other, 'tis you are in the spleen, and not I in the wrong. If you think this letter fplenetic, confider 1 have juft received the news of the death of a friend, whom I efteemed almost as many years as you; poor Fenton. He died at Eafthamftead, of indolence and inactivity; let it not be your fate, but use exercise. I hope the Duchefs will take care of you in this refpect, and either make you gallop after her, or teize you enough at home to ferve inftead of exercife abroad. Mrs. Howard is fo concerned about you, and fo angry at me for not writing to you, and at Mrs. Blount for not doing the fame, that I am piqu'd with jealoufy and envy at you, and hate you as much as if you had a great place at court; which you will confefs a proper caufe of envy and hatred, in any Poet militant or unpenfioned. But to fet matters even, I own I love you; and own, I am, as I ever was, and just as I ever fhall be, Your, etc.

LETTER

DEAR SIR,

XVI.

O&.6, 1727.

Have many years ago magnify'd, in my own mind, and repeated to you, a ninth Beatitude, added to the eight in the Scripture; "Bleffed is he who expects nothing, for he fhall never be difappointed." I could find in my heart to congratulate you on this happy difmiffion from all Court-dependance; I dare fay I fhall find you the better and the honefter man for it, many years hence: very probably the healthfuller, and the chearfuller into the bargain. You are happily rid of many curfed ceremonies, as well as of many ill and vicious habits, of which few or no men escape the infection, who are hackney'd and tramelled in the ways of a court. Princes indeed, and Peers (the lackies of Princes) and Ladies (the fools of Peers) will fimile on you the lefs; but men of worth and real

* Of Queensberry.

friends

friends will look on you the better. There is a thing, the only thing which Kings and Queens cannot give you (for they have it not to give) Liberty, and which is worth all they have; which, as yet, I thank God, Englishmen need not afk from their hands. You will enjoy that, and your own integrity, and the fatisfactory consciousness of having not merited fuch graces from courts as are beftowed only on the mean, fervile, flattering, interefted, and undefering. The only fteps to the favour of the Great are such complacencies, fuch compliances, fuch diftant decorums, ás delude them in their vanities, or engage them in their paffions. He is their greateft favourite, who is the falsest: and when a man, by fuch vile gradations, arrives at the height of grandeur and power, he is then at beft but in a circumftance to be hated, and in a condition to be hanged, for ferving their ends: fo many a Minister has found it!

I believe you did not want advice, in the letter you fent by my Lord Grantham; I prefume you writ it not, without and you could not have better, if I guess right at the person who agreed to your doing it, in refpect to any decency you ought to obferve: for I take that person to be a perfect judge of decencies and forms. I am not without fears even on that perfon's account : 1 think it a bad omen: but what have I to do with Court-omens ?- Dear Gay, adieu. I can only add a plain uncourtly fpeech: While you are no body's fervant, you may be any one's friend; and as fuch I embrace you, in all conditions of life. While I have a fhilling, you fhall have fix-pence, nay eightpence, if I can contrive to live upon a groat. I am faithfully Your, etc.

LETTER XVII.

From Mr. GAY to Mr. POPE.

Aug. 2, 1728.

TW WAS two or three weeks ago that I writ you a letter; I might indeed have done it fooner; I thought of you every poft-day upon that account, and every other day upon fome account or other. I muft beg you to give Mrs. B. my fincere thanks for her kind way of thinking of me, which I have heard of more than once from our friend at court, who feem'd in the letter fhe writ to be in high health

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and

and fpirits. Confidering the multiplicity of pleafures and delights that one is over-run with in thofe places, I wonder how any body hath health and fpirits enough to fupport them I am heartily glad fhe has, and whenever I hear fo, I find it contributes to mine. You fee I am not free from dependance, tho' I have lefs attendance than I had formerly: for a great deal of my own welfare ftill depends upon hers. Is the widow's houfe to be difpos'd of yet? I have not given up my pretenfions to the Dean; if it was to be parted with, I wifh one of us had it; I hope you with fo too, and that Mrs. Blount and Mrs. Howard with the fame, and for the very fame reason that I wish it, All I could hear of you of late hath been by advertisements in news-papers, by which one would think the race of Curls was multiplied; and, by the indignation fuch fellows fhow against you, that you have more merit than any body alive could have. Homer himself hath not been worfe us'd by the French. I am to tell you that the Duchefs makes you her compliments, and is always inclin'd to like any thing you do; that Mr. Congreve admires, with me, your fortitude and loves, not envies, your performance, for we are not Dunces. Adieu.

LETTER XVIII.

April 18, 1730.

IF my friendship were as effectual as it is fincere, you would be one of thofe people who would be vaftly advantaged and enrich'd by it. I ever honour'd thofe Popes who were most famous for Nepotifm; 'tis a fign that the old fellows loved Somebody, which is not usual in fuch advanced years. And I now honour Sir Robert Walpole for his extenfive bounty and goodness to his private friends and relations. But it vexes me to the heart when I reflect, that my friendship is fo much lefs effectual than theirs; nay fo utterly ufelefs that it cannot give you any thing, not even a dinner at this diftance, nor help the General whom I greatly love, to catch one fifh. My only confolation is to think you happier than myfelf, and to begin to envy you, which is next to hating you (an excellent remedy for love.) How comes it that Providence has been fo unkind to me (who am a greater object of compaffion than any fat man alive) that I am forced to drink wine, while you riot in water, prepared with oranges by the hand

of

of the Duchefs of Queenfberry? that I am condemned to live by a highway fide, like an old Patriarch, receiving ail guests, where my portico (as Virgil has it)

Mane falutantum totis vomit aedibus undam,

while you are wrapt in the Idalian Groves, fprinkled with rofe-water, and live in burrage, balm, and burnet up to the chin, with the Duchefs of Queenfberry; that I am doom'd to the drudgery of dining at court with the ladies in waiting at Windfor, while you are happily banish'd with the Duchefs of Queensberry? So partial is Fortune in her difpenfations! for I deferved ten times more to be banish'd than you, and I know fome Ladies who merit it better than even her Grace. After this I muft not name any, who dare do fo much for you as to fend you their fervices. But one there is, who exhorts me often to write to you, I fuppofe, to prevent or excufe her not doing it herfelf; fhe feems (for that is all I'll fay for a courtier) to with you mighty well. Another, who is no courtier, frequently mentions you, and does certainly wish you well.-I fancy, after all, they both do fo.

:

I writ to Mr. Fortefcue, and told him the pains you took to fee him. The Dean is well; I have had many accounts of him from Irifh evidence, but only two letters thefe four months, in both which you are mentioned kindly he is in the north of Ireland, doing I know not what, with I know not whom. Mr. Cleland always fpeaks of you he is at Tunbridge, wondering at the fuperior carnivoracity of our friend: he plays now with the old Duchefs, nay dines with her, after fhe has won all his money. Other news I know not, but that Counsellor Bickford has hurt himself, and has the ftrongeft walking-ftaff I ever faw. He intends fpeedily to make you a vifit with it at Amesbury. I am my Lord Duke's, my Lady Duchefs's, Mr. Dormer's, General Dormer's, and Your, etc.

LETTER XIX.

Sept. 11, 1730.

May with great truth return your fpeech, that I think of you daily; oftner indeed than is confiftent with the character of a reasonable man, who is rather to make himelf eafy with the things and men that are about him than

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