kind; I propose no rewards to myself, and why should I take any sort of pains? Here I sit and sleep, and probably here I shall sleep till I sleep for ever, like the old man of Verona. I hear of what passes in the busy world with so little attention, that I forget it the next day; and as to the learned world, there is nothing passes in it. I have no more to add, but that I am, with the same truth as ever, Your, &c.

LETTER CI.

MR. POPE TO MR. GAY.

October 23, 1730.

YOUR letter is a very kind one, but I cannot say so pleasing to me as many of yours have been, through the account you give of the dejection of your spirits. I wish the too constant use of water does not contribute to it; I find Dr. Arbuthnot and another very knowing physician of that opinion. I also wish you were not so totally immersed in the country; I hope your return to town will be a prevalent remedy against the evil of too much recollection. I wish it partly for my own sake. We have lived little together of late, and we want to be physicians for one another. It is a remedy that agreed very well with us both, for many years, and I fancy our constitutions would mend upon the old medicine of studiorum simili

tudo, &c. I believe we both of us want whetting; there are several here who will do you that good office, merely for the love of wit, which seems to be bidding the town a long and last adieu. I can tell you of no one thing worth reading, or seeing; the whole age seems resolved to justify the Dunciad, and it may stand for a public epitaph or monumental inscription like that at Thermopylæ, on a whole people perished! There may indeed be a wooden image or two of poetry set up, to preserve the memory that there once were bards in Britain; and (like the giants in Guildhall) shew the bulk and bad taste of our ancestors: at present the poor Laureat* and Stephen Duck serve for this purpose; a drunken sot of a Parson holds forth the emblem of inspiration, and an honest industrious Thresher not unaptly represents pains and labour. I hope this phenomenon of Wiltshire has appeared at Amesbury, or the Duchess will be thought insensible to all bright qualities and exalted geniuses, in court and country alike. But he is a harmless man, and therefore I am glad.

This is all the news talked of at court, but it will please you better to hear that Mrs. Howard talks of you, though not in the same breath with the Thresher, as they do of me. By the way, have you seen or conversed with Mr. Chubb, who is a wonderful phenomenon of Wiltshire? I have

He was a glover at Salisbury. How came the commentator to imagine that the City set him up to rival Locke?

Warton.

read through his whole volume* with admiration of the writer; though not always with approbation of the doctrine. I have passed just three days in London in four months, two at Windsor, half an one at Richmond, and have not taken one excursion into any other country. Judge now whether I can live in my library. Adieu. Live mindful of one of your first friends, who will be so till the last. Mrs. Blount deserves your remembrance, for she never forgets you, and wants nothing of being a friend.†

I beg the Duke's and her Grace's acceptance of my services the contentment you express in their company pleases me; though it be the bar to my own, in dividing you from us. I am ever very truly your, &c.

* This was his quarto volume, written before he had given any signs of these extravagancies, which have since rendered his name so noted. As the Court set up Mr. Duck for the rival of Mr. Pope, the City at the same time considered Chubb as one who would eclipse Locke. The modesty of the Court Poet kept him sober in the very intoxicating situation, while the vanity of this new-fangled philosopher assisted his sage admirers in turning his head. Warburton. Alluding to those lines in the Epistle on the Characters of

Women:

"With every pleasing, every prudent part,

Say, what can Chloe want?-She wants a heart."

Warburton.

The plain meaning of which is, Pope could not inspire tenderness: hence he says:

"Adieu, fond hope of mutual flame !"

and this is the reason of his asserting, that his favourite Martha wanted " a heart."

Bowles

DEAR SIR,

LETTER CII.

MR. GAY TO DR. SWIFT.

Amesbury, Nov. 8, 1730.

So you are determined never to write to me again; but, for all that, you shall not make me hold my tongue. You shall hear from me (the post-office willing) whether you will or not. I see none of the folks you correspond with, so that I am forced to pick up intelligence concerning you as I can; which has been so very little, that I am resolved to make my complaints to you as a friend, who I know loves to relieve the distressed and in the circumstances I am in, where should I apply, but to my best friend? Mr. Pope, indeed, upon my frequent inquiries, has told me that the letters which are directed to him concern me as much as himself but what you say of yourself, or of me, or to me, I know nothing at all. Lord Carteret was here yesterday, in his return from the Isle of Wight, where he had been a shooting, and left seven pheasants with us. He went this morning to the Bath, to Lady Carteret, who is perfectly recovered. He talked of you three hours last night, and told me that you talk of me: I mean, that you are prodigiously in his favour, as he says; and I believe that I am in yours; for I know you to be a just and equitable person, and it is but my due. He seemed to take to me, which may proceed from

1

your recommendation; though, indeed, there is another reason for it, for he is now out of employment, and my friends have been generally of that sort for, I take to them, as being naturally inclined to those who can do no mischief. Pray, do you come to England this year? He thinks you do. I wish you would; and so does the Duchess of Queensberry. What would you have more to induce you? Your money cries, come, spend me: and your friends cry, come, see me. I have been treated barbarously by you. If you knew how often I talk of you, how often I think of you, you would now and then direct a letter to me, and I would allow Mr. Pope to have his share in it. In short, I do not care to keep any man's money, that serves me so. Love or money I must have; and if you will not let me have the comfort of the one, I think I must endeavour to get a little comfort by spending some of the other. I must beg that you will call at Amesbury, in your way to London; for I have many things to say to you; and I can assure you, you will be welcome to a three-pronged fork. I remember your prescription, and I do ride upon the Downs; and at present I have no asthma. I have killed five brace of partridges, and four brace and a half of quails: and I do not envy either Sir Robert or Stephen Duck, who is the favourite poet of the court. I hear sometimes from Pope, and from scarce anybody else. Were I to live ever so long, I believe I should never think of London; but I cannot help thinking of you. Were you here, I could talk to you, but I would