as to appear again. I doubted your meaning in this; whether it was to pick out the best of those verses, (as those on the Idleness of business, on Ignorance, on Laziness, etc.) to make the method and numbers exact, and avoid repetitions? For though (upon reading them upon this occasion) I believe, they might receive such an alteration with advantage; yet they would not be changed so much, but any one would know them for the same at first sight. Or if you mean to improve the worst pieces? which are such, as, to render them very good, would require great addition, and almost the entire new writing of them. Or lastly, if you mean the middle sort, as the Songs and Love-verses? For these will need only to be shortened, to omit repetition; the words remaining very little different from what they were before. Pray let me know your mind in this, for I am utterly at a loss. Yet I have tried what I could do to some of the songs, and the poems on Laziness, and Ignorance, but can't (even in my own partial judgment) think my alterations much to the purpose. So that I must needs desire you would apply your care wholly at present to those which are yet unpublished, of which there are more than enough to make a considerable volume, of full as good ones, nay, I believe, of better than any in Vol. I. which I could wish you would defer, at least till you have finished these that are yet unprinted.

I send you a sample of some few of these; namely, the verses to Mr. Waller in his old age; your new ones on the Duke of Marlborough, and two others. I have done all that I thought could be of advantage

to them: Some I have contracted, as we do sunbeams, to improve their energy and force; some I have taken quite away, as we take branches from a tree, to add to the fruit; others I have entirely new expressed, and turned more into poetry. Donne (like one of his successors) had infinitely more wit than he wanted versification; for the great dealers of wit, like those in trade, take least pains to set off their goods; while the haberdashers of small wit spare for no decorations or ornaments. You have commissioned me to paint your shop, and I have done my best to brush you up like your neighbours. But I can no more pretend to the merit of the production, than a midwife to the virtues and good qualities of the child she helps into the light.

The few things I have entirely added, you will excuse; you may take them lawfully for your own, because they are no more than sparks lighted up by your fire and you may omit them at last, if you think them but squibs in your triumphs.

I am, etc.

Several of Mr. Pope's lines, very easy to be distinguished, may be found in the Posthumous Editions of Wycherley's Poems; particularly those on Solitude, on the Public, and on the Mixed Life. W.

LETTER XII.

FROM MR. WYCHERLEY.

Nov. 11, 1707.

I RECEIVED yours of the 9th yesterday, which has (like the rest of your letters) at once pleased and instructed me; so that I assure you, you can no more write too much to your absent friends, than speak too much to the present. This is a truth that all men own, who have either seen your writings, or heard your discourse; enough to make others shew their judgment, in ceasing to write or talk, especially to you, or in your company. However, I speak or write to you, not to please you, but myself; since I provoke your answers; which, whilst they humble me, give me vanity; though I am lessened by you, even when you commend me; since you commend my little sense with so much more of yours, that you put me out of countenance, whilst you would keep me in it. So that you have found a way (against the custom of great wits) to shew even a great deal of good-nature with a great deal of good sense.

I thank you for the book you promised me, by which I find you would not only correct my lines, but my life.

As to the damned verses I intrusted you with, I hope you will let them undergo your purgatory, to save them from other people's damning them : since the critics, who are generally the first damned in this life, like the damned below, never leave to bring

those above them under their own circumstances. I beg you to peruse my papers, and select what you think best or most tolerable, and look over them again; for I resolve suddenly to print some of them, as a hardened old gamester will (in spite of all former ill usage by fortune) push on an ill hand in expectation of recovering himself; especially since I have such a Croupier or Second to stand by me as Mr. Pope.

LETTER XIII.

Nov. 20, 1707.

MR. ENGLEFYLD being upon his journey to London, tells me I must write to you by him, which I do, not more to comply with his desire, than to gratify my own; though I did it so lately by the messenger you sent hither: I take it too as an opportunity of sending you the fair copy of the poem on Dulness, which was not then finished, and which I should not care to hazard by the common post. Mr. Englefyld is ignorant of the contents, and I hope your prudence will let him remain so, for my sake no less than your own: since, if you should reveal any thing of this nature, it would be no wonder reports should be raised, and there are some (I fear) who would be ready to improve them to my disad

7 The original of it in blots, and with figures of the References from copy to copy, in Mr. Pope's hand, is yet extant, among other such Brouillons of Mr Wycherley's Poems, corrected by him. W.

vantage. I am sorry you told the great man, whom you met in the court of requests that your papers were in my hands; no man alive shall ever know any such thing from me; and I give you this warning besides, that though yourself should say I had any ways assisted you, I am notwithstanding resolved to deny it.

The method of the copy I send you is very different from what it was, and much more regular for the better help of your memory, I desire him to compare it by the figures in the margin, answering to the same in this letter. The poem is now divided into four parts, marked with the literal figures 1. 2. 3. 4. The first contains the Praise of Dulness, and shews how upon several suppositions it passes for 1. religion. 2, philosophy. 3. example. 4. wit. and 5. the cause of wit, and the end of it. The second part contains the Advantages of Dulness; 1st, in Business; and 2dly, at Court, where the similitudes of the Bias of a Bowl, and the Weights of a clock, are directly tending to the subject, though introduced before in a place where there was no mention made of those advantages (which was your only objection to my adding them). The third contains the happiness of Dulness in all stations, and shews in a great many particulars, that it is so fortunate as to be esteemed some good quality or other in all sorts of people; that it is thought quiet, sense, caution, policy, prudence, majesty, valour, circumspection, honesty, &c. The fourth part I have wholly added, as a climax which sums up all the praise, advantage, and happiness, of Dulness in a few words, and strengthens