been greater; and I wish it now more, since he is become so near to you, for whom my respect runs hand in hand with my affection for the Dean; and I cannot wish well for the one without doing so for the other. I turn my mind all I can from the melancholy subject of your letter. May God Almighty alleviate your concern, and his complaints, as much as possible in this state of infirmities, while he lives; and may your tenderness, madam, prevent any thing after his death which may anywise depreciate his memory. I dare say nothing of ill consequence can happen from the commission given to Dr. King. You see, madam, I write to you with absolute freedom, as becomes me to the friend of my friend, and to a woman of sense and spirit. I will say no more, that you may find I treat you with the same delicacy that you do me (and for which I thank you) without the least compliment: and it is none when I add, that I am, with esteem, madam, your most obliged and most obedient servant. OF Mr. Allen little more is known than that he raised himself by his own industry and ability, from a low origin to opulence and respectability, a circumstance alluded to by Pope in the Epilogue to his Satires : Let humble Allen with an awkward shame, Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame. Pope had originally styled him low-born Allen, but afterwards altered it as it now stands, not on the remonstrance of Mr. Allen, as has been supposed, but for a reason he has himself thus assigned, in a letter quoted by Warburton, but not printed in the correspondence. "I have found a virtue in you, more than I certainly knew before; I mean humility. I must therefore do justice to my own conscience of it, bear testimony to it, and change the epithet I first gave you of low-born to humble. I shall take care to do you the justice to tell every body, the change was not made at yours, or at any friend's request for you, but my own knowledge you merited it." Johnson says, that "Allen, humble as he was, hated these lines, and hated Pope as the author of them;" but these lines have preserved Allen from oblivion; and Pope judged rightly in thinking that the humility of his birth enhanced instead of degrading his merits: but, "Vice is undone if she forgets her birth;" "Virtue may choose the high or low degree, Pope's acquaintance with Allen commenced in 1735, in consequence of the publication of a portion of Pope's letters by Curll, with which Allen was so highly delighted, that he entreated Pope to publish the whole, and liberally offered to pay the expense of the edition. Notwithstanding the unfortunate quarrel which arose between them, and which appears to have interrupted their correspondence, yet the esteem they entertained for each other remained undiminished; and, after some explanations, Pope still continued to pay a winter's visit to his friend at Prior Park, near Bath, as long as his health would permit. Of this quarrel, and the causes that led to it, a particular account will be found in the Life of Pope, prefixed to the present edition. LETTERS ΤΟ RALPH ALLEN, ESQ. LETTER I. Twitnam, April 30, 1736. I SAW Mr. M. yesterday, who has readily allowed Mr. V. to copy the picture. I have inquired for the best originals of those two subjects, which, I found, were favourite ones with you, and well deserve to be so, the discovery of Joseph to his Brethren, and the Resignation of the Captive by Scipio. Of the latter, my Lord Burlington has a fine one done by Ricci, and I am promised the other in a good print from one of the chief Italian painters. That of Scipio is of the exact size one would wish for a basso relievo, in which manner, in my opinion, you would best ornament your hall, done in chiaro obscuro. A man not only shews his taste, but his virtue, in the choice of such ornaments: and whatever example most strikes us, we may reasonably imagine, may have an influence upon others. So that |