in a rustic manner, kicked his Rosalind. Dr. Parnelle and I have been inseparable ever since you went. We are now at the Bath, where (if you are not, as I heartily hope, better engaged) your coming would be the greatest pleasure to us in the world. Talk not of expenses: Homer shall support his children. I beg a line from you directed to the Post-house in Bath. Poor Parnelle is in an ill state of health.

Pardon me, if I add a word of advice in the poetical way. Write something on the king, or prince, or princess. On whatsoever foot you may be with the court, this can do no harm. I shall never know where to end, and am confounded in the many things I have to say to you, though they all amount but to this, that I am entirely, as ever,

Your, &c.

LETTER XI.

MR. POPE TO DR. PARNELLE.

DEAR SIR,

Binfield, near Oakingham,
Tuesday, (1714).*

I BELIEVE the hurry you were in hindered your giving me a word by the last post, so that I am yet to learn whether you got well to town, or continue so there. I very much fear both for your

*This appears to have been written when Dr. Parnelle was in England, in the lifetime of Queen Anne, and was introduced by Swift to Harley.

health and your quiet; and no man living can be more truly concerned in any thing that touches either, than myself. I would comfort myself, however, with hoping that your business may not be unsuccessful, for your sake; and that, at least, it may soon be put into other proper hands. For my own, I beg earnestly of you to return to us as soon as possible. You know how very much I want you, and that however your business may depend upon any other, my business depends entirely upon you, and yet still I hope you will find your man, even though I lose you the mean while. At this time the more I love you, the more I can spare you; which alone will, I dare say, be a reason to you, to let me have you back the sooner. The minute I lost you, Eustathius with nine hundred pages, and nine thousand contractions of the Greek character, arose to my view! Spondanus, with all his auxiliaries, in number a thousand pages, (value three shillings,) and Dacier's three volumes, Barnes's two, Valterie's three, Cuperus, half in Greek, Leo Allatius, three parts in Greek ; Scaliger, Macrobius, and (worse than them all) Aulus Gellius! All these rushed upon my soul at once, and whelmed me under a fit of the headache. Dear Sir, not only as you are a friend, and a good-natured man; but as you are a christian and a divine, come back speedily, and prevent the increase of my sins; for at the rate I have begun to rave, I shall not only damn all the poets and commentators who have gone before me, but be

To be

damned myself by all who come after me. serious, you have not only left me to the last degree impatient for your return, who at all times should have been so; (though never so much as since I knew you in best health here;) but you have wrought several miracles upon our family; you have made old people fond of a young and gay person, and inveterate papists of a clergyman of the church of England: even nurse herself is in danger of being in love in her old age, and (for aught I know) would even marry Dennis for your sake, because he is your man, and loves his master. In short, come down forthwith, or give me good reasons for delaying, though but for a day or two, by the next post. If I find them just, I will come up to you, though you know how precious my time is at present; my hours were never worth so much money before; but perhaps you are not sensible of this, who give away your own works. You are a generous author; I, a hackney scribbler; you are a Grecian, and bred at a University; I, a poor Englishman of my own educating; you are a reverend parson; I, a wag; in short, you are Dr. Parnelle (with an E at the end of your name) and I, your most obliged and affectionate friend, and faithful servant.

My hearty service to the Dean, Dr. Arbuthnot, Mr. Ford, and the true genuine shepherd, J. Gay of Devon. I expect him down with you.

LETTER XII.

MR. POPE TO MR. GAY.

DEAR MR. GAY,

(1714.)

ABOVE all other news, send us the best, that of your good health, if you enjoy it; which Mr. Harcourt made us very much fear. If you have any design either to amend your health or your life, I know no better expedient than to come hither, where you should not want room though I lay myself in a truckle-bed under the doctor.* You might here converse with the old Greeks, be initiated into all their customs, and learn their prayers by heart as we have done: the doctor, last Sunday, intending to say Our Father, was got half way in Chryses' prayer to Apollo. The ill effects of contention and squabbling, so lively described in the first Iliad, make Dr. Parnelle and myself continue in the most exemplary union in every thing. We deserve to be worshipped by all the poor, divided, factious, interested poets of this world.

As we rise in our speculations daily, we are grown so grave, that we have not condescended to laugh at any of the idle things about us this week. I have contracted a severity of aspect from deep meditation on high subjects, equal to the formidable front of black-browed Jupiter, and become an

* Dr. Parnelle, then on a visit to Mr. Pope at Binfield.

awful nod as well, when I assent to some grave and weighty proposition of the doctor, or enforce a criticism of my own. In a word, Y-g* himself has not acquired more tragic majesty in his aspect by reading his own verses, than I by Homer's.

In this state I cannot consent to your publication of that ludicrous trifling burlesque you write about. Dr. Parnelle also joins in my opinion, that it will by no means be well to print it.

Pray give (with the utmost fidelity and esteem) my hearty service to the Dean, Dr. Arbuthnot, Mr. Ford, and to Mr. Fortescue. Let them also know at Button's that I am mindful of them. I am, divine Bucoliast!

THY LOVING COUNTRYMAN.

DEAR SIR,

LETTER XIII.

MR. POPE TO MR. GAY.

October 23, (1714).

I HAVE been perpetually troubled with sickness of late, which has made me so melancholy, that the immortality of the soul has been my constant speculation, as the mortality of my body my constant plague. In good earnest, Seneca is nothing to a fit of illness.

Dr. Parnelle will honour Tonson's Miscellany with some very beautiful copies, at my request. He enters heartily into our design. I only fear * Dr. Edward Young.

Bowles.