and you are escaped, even in his opinion. I promised in your name, like a good Godfather, not that you should renounce the devil and all his works, but that you would be delighted to find him your friend, merely for his own sake; therefore prepare yourself for some

civilities.

I have done Homer's head, shadowed and heightened carefully; and I inclose the outline of the same size, that you may determine whether you would have it so large, or reduced to make room for feuillage or laurel round the oval, or about the square of the Busto? perhaps there is something more solemn in the image itself, if I can get it well performed.

If I have been instrumental in bringing you and Mr. Addison together with all sincerity, I value myself upon it as an acceptable piece of service to such a one as I know you to be.

Your, etc.

LETTER XXIII.

MR. POPE'S ANSWER.

August 27, 1714.

I AM just arrived from Oxford, very well diverted and entertained there. Every one is much concerned for the Queen's death. No panegyrics ready yet for the King.

I admire your whig-principles of resistance exceedingly, in the spirit of the Barcelonians: I join in your wish for them.. Mr. Addison's verses on Liberty, in

his Letter from Italy, would be a good form of prayer in my opinion, O Liberty! thou Goddess heavenly bright! etc.

What you mention of the friendly office you endeavoured to do betwixt Mr. Addison and me, deserves acknowledgments on my part. You thoroughly know my regard to his character, and my propensity to testify it by all ways in my power. You as thoroughly know the scandalous meanness of that proceeding which was used by Philips, to make a man I so highly value, suspect my dispositions towards him. But as, after all, Mr. Addison must be the judge in what regards himself, and has seemed to be no very just one to me; so, I must own to you, I expect nothing but civility from him, how much soever I wish for his friendship. As for any offices of real kindness or service which it is in his power to do me, I should be ashamed to receive them from any man who had no better opinion of my Morals, than to think me a Party-man: nor of my Temper than to believe me capable of maligning, or envying another's reputation as a poet. So I leave it to time to convince him as to both, to shew him the shallow depths of those halfwitted creatures who mis-informed him, and to prove that I am incapable of endeavouring to lessen a person whom I would be proud to imitate, and therefore ashamed to flatter. In a word, Mr. Addison3 is sure

7 Lowth in his Grammar censures the using adjectives, as heavenly, for adverbs; and mentions this line as an example.

8

Lady Wortley Montague, in one of her sprightly and elegant letters to Pope, says; "I received the news of Mr. Addison's being declared Secretary of State with the less surprize, in that I know that post was offered to him before. At that time he de

of my respect at all times, and of my real friendship, whenever he shall think fit to know me for what I am.

ence.

For all that passed betwixt Dr. Swift and me, you know the whole (without reserve) of our correspondThe engagements I had to him were such as the actual services he had done me in relation to the subscription for Homer, obliged me to. I must have leave to be grateful to him, and to any one who serves me, let him be never so obnoxious to any party: nor did the Tory-party ever put me to the hardship of asking this leave, which is the greatest obligation I owe to it; and I expect no greater from the Whig-party than the same liberty.- A curse on the word Party, which I have been forced to use so often in this period! I wish the present reign9 may put an end to the distinction, that there may be no other for the future than that of Honest and Knave, Fool and Man of sense; these two sorts must always be enemies; but for the rest may all people do as you and I, believe what they please, and be friends.

I am, etc.

clined it; and I really believe he would have done well to have declined it now: such a post as that, and such a wife as the Countess, do not seem to be, in prudence, eligible for a man that is asthmatic; and we may see the day when he will be glad to resign them both. It is well that he laid aside the thoughts of the voluminous Dictionary, of which I have heard you, or somebody else, frequently make mention.-Constantinople, 1717."

Unfortunately it did not put an end to party-distinctions; but by proscribing the Tories, heightened and continued the animosity of both parties.

MY LORD,

LETTER XXIV.

TO THE EARL OF HALIFAX.

December 1, 1714.

I AM obliged to you both for the favours you have done me, and for those you intend me. I distrust neither your will nor your memory, when it is to do good and if ever I become troublesome or solicitous, it must not be out of expectation, but out of gratitude. Your Lordship may either cause me to live agreeably in the town, or contentedly in the country, which is really all the difference I set between an easy fortune and a small one. It is indeed a high strain of generosity in you, to think of making me easy all my life, only because I have been so happy as to divert you some few hours: but if I may have leave to add, it is because you think me no enemy to my native country, there will appear a better reason; for I must of consequence be very much (as I sincerely am)

Yours, etc.

LETTER XXV1.

DR. PARNELLE TO MR. POPE.

I AM writing to you a long letter, but all the tediousness I feel in it is, that it makes me during the time think more intently of my being far from you. I fancy, if I were with you, I could remove some of the uneasiness which you may have felt from the opposition of the world, and which you should be ashamed to feel, since it is but the testimony which one part of it gives you, that your merit is unquestionable. What would you have otherwise, from ignorance, envy, or those tempers which vie with you in your own way? I know this in mankind, that when our ambition is unable to attain its end, it is not only wearied, but exasperated too at the vanity of its labours; then we speak ill of happier studies, and sighing, condemn the excellence which we find above our reach.

My Zoilus, which you used to write about, I

'This, and the three Extracts following, concerning the Translation of the first Iliad, set on foot by Mr. Addison, Mr. Pope has omitted in his first Edition. P.

2 When Pope published Parnelle's charming translation of the Pervigilium Veneris, which certainly was not written by Catullus, but is of a later date, he did not print the Latin verses as if they were Trochaics. It were to be wished we had as good a translation of that noble and spirited poem, so singular in its kind, the Atys, the numbers of which are so expressive of distraction and enthusiam.

3 Printed for B. Lintot, 1715, 8°, and afterward added to the last edition of his poems. P.

• Parnelle assisted Pope by giving him the Essay on Homer's