a woman, to occafion her calamity; but am pious enough to believe thofe qualities must be intended to conduce to her benefit and her glory.

Your firft fhort letter only ferves to fhew me you are alive it puts me in mind of the firft dove that return'd to Noah, and juft made him know it had found no reft abroad.

There is nothing in it that pleases me, but when you tell me you had no fea-fickness. I beg your next may give me all the pleasure it can, that is, tell me any that you receive. You can make no difcoveries that will be half fo valuable to me as those of your own mind. Nothing that regards the states or kingdoms you pass thro’, will engage fo much of my curiofity or concern, as what relates to yourself: Your welfare, to fay truth, is more at my heart than that of Chriftendom.

I am fure I may defend the truth, tho' perhaps not the virtue of this declaration. One is ignorant, or doubtful at beft, of the merits of differing religions and governments but private virtues one can be fure of. I therefore know what particular Person has defert enough to merit being happier than others, but not what Nation deferves to conquer or opprefs another. You will fay, I am not public-fpirited; let it be so, I may have too many tenderneffes, particular regards, or narrow views; but at the fame time I am certain that whoever wants these, can never have a Public spirit: for (as a friend of mine fays) how is it poffible for that man to love twenty thoufand people, who never loved one ?

I communicated your letter to Mr. C, he thinks of you and talks of you as he ought, I mean as I do, and one always thinks that to be just as it ought. His health and mine are now fo good, that we wish with all our fouls you were a witness of it. We never meet but we lament over you: we pay a kind of weekly rites to your memory, where we ftrow flowers of rhetoric, and offer fuch libations to your name as it would be prophane to call toafting. The Duke of Bm is fometimes the

High

High Prieft of your praises; and upon the whole, I believe there are as few men that are not forry at your departure, as women that are; for, you must know, most of your fex want good fenfe, and therefore muft want generofity: You have so much of both, that, I am sure, you pardon them: for one cannot but forgive whatever one defpifes. For my part I hate a great many women for your fake, and undervalue all the reft. 'Tis you are to blame, and may God revenge it upon you, with all those bleffings and earthly profperities, which, the divines tell us, are the cause of our perdition; for if he makes you happy in this world, I dare truft your own virtue to do it in the other. I am

Your, etc.

LETTER XXIII.

To Mrs. ARABELLA FERMOR.

On her Marriage.

γου YOU are by this time fatisfied how much the tendernefs of one man of merit is to be preferred to the addreffes of a thoufand. And by this time the Gentleman you have made choice of is fenfible, how great is the joy of having all those charms and good qualities which have pleased fo many, now applied to please one only. It was but juft, that the fame Virtues which gave you reputation, fhould give you happiness; and I can wish you no greater, than that you may receive it in as high a degree yourfelf, as fo much good humour muft infallibly give it to your husband.

It may be expected, perhaps, that one who has the title of Poet fhould fay fomething more polite on this occafion: But I am really more a well-wisher to your felicity, than a celebrater of your beauty. Befides, you are now a married woman, and in a way to be a great many better things than a fine lady; fuch as an excellent

Hhh 2

wife,

wife, a faithful friend, a tender parent, and at laft, the confequence of them all, a faint in heaven. You ought now to hear nothing but that, which was all you ever defired to hear (whatever others may have spoken to you) I mean Truth: and it is with the utmost that I affure you, no friend you have can more rejoice in any good that befals you, is more fincerely delighted with the profpect of your future happiness, or more unfeignedly defires a long continuance of it.

I hope, you will think it but juft, that a man who will certainly be spoken of as your admirer, after he is dead, may have the happiness to be efteemed, while he is living,

Your, etc.

LETTERS

LETTERS

TO AND FROM

Sir WILLIAM TRUMBULL*.

From the Year 1705 to 1716.

LETTER I.

Sir WILLIAM TRUMBULL to Mr. PoPE.

SIR,

I

October 19, 1705.

Return you the Book you were pleased to fend me, and with it your obliging letter, which deferves my particular acknowledgment; for next to the pleasure of enjoying the company of fo good a friend, the welcomeft thing to me is to hear from him. I expected to find, what I have met with, an admirable genius in those Poems, not only because they were Milton's †, or were approved by Sir Hen. Wooton, but because you had commended them; and give me leave to tell you, that I know no body fo like to equal him, even at the age he wrote most of them, as yourself. Only do not afford more cause of complaints against you, that you suffer nothing of yours to come abroad, which in this age, wherein wit and true fenfe is more scarce than money, is a piece of fuch cruelty as your best friends can hardly

Secretary of State to King William the Third.

L'Allegro, Il Penferofo, Lycidas, and the Masque of Comus.

pardon.

pardon. I hope you will repent and amend; I could offer many reasons to this purpose, and fuch as you cannot answer with any fincerity; but that I dare not enlarge, for fear of engaging in a ftyle of compliment, which has been fo abused by fools and knaves, that it is become almoft fcandalous. 1 conclude therefore with an affurance which fhall never vary, of my being ever, etc.

LETTER II.

Sir WILLIAM TRUMBULL to Mr. POPE.

April 9, 1708.

I Have this moment received the favour of yours of the 8th inftant; and will make you a true excufe (tho' perhaps no very good one) that I deferred the troubling you with a letter, when I fent back your papers, in hopes of fecing you at Binfield before this time. If I had met with any fault in your performance, I fhould freely now (as I have done too prefumptuously in converfation with you) tell you my opinion; which I have frequently ventured to give you, rather in compliance with your defires than that I could think it reasonable. For I am not yet fatisfied upon what grounds I can pretend to judge of poetry, who never have been practised in the There may poffibly be fome happy geniuses, who may judge of fome of the natural beauties of a poem, as a man may of the proportions of a building, without having read Vitruvius, or knowing any thing of the rules of architecture; but this, tho' it may fometimes be in the right, must be subject to many mistakes, and is certainly but a fuperficial knowledge; without entering into the art, the methods, and the particular excellencies of the whole compofure, in all the parts of it.

art.

Befides my want of skill, I have another reason why I ought to fufpect myfelf, by reafon of the great affection I have for you; which might give too much bias to be kind to every thing that comes from you. But after all