and, with a noble scorn of politics, aspire to philosophy. I am glad you resolve to meddle no more with the low concerns and interests of parties. even of countries; for countries are larger parties. Quid verum atque decens, curare, et rogare, nostrum sit. I am much pleased with your design upon Rochefoucault's maxim; pray finish it.* I am happy whenever you join our names together: so would Dr. Arbuthnot be, but at this time he can be pleased with nothing: for his darling son is dying in all probability, by the melancholy account I received this morning.

The paper you ask me about is of little value. It might have been a seasonable satire upon the scandalous language and passion with which men of condition have stooped to treat one another; surely they sacrifice too much to the people, when they sacrifice their own characters, families, &c. to the diversion of that rabble of readers. I agree

with you in my contempt of most popularity, fame,

&c. Even as a writer I am cool in it, and whenever you see what I am now writing,† you will be convinced I would please but a few, and (if I could) make mankind less admirers, and greater reasoners. I study much more to render my own portion of being easy, and to keep this peevish frame of the

* The Poem on his own death, formed upon a maxim of Rochefoucault. It is one of the best of his performances, but very characteristic. Warburton.

This was said whilst he was employed on the Essay on Man, not yet published, 1731.

Warton.

human body in good humour. Infirmities have not quite unmanned me, and it will delight you to hear they are not increased, though not diminished. I thank God, I do not very much want people to attend me, though my mother now cannot. When I am sick, I lie down; when I am better, I rise up: I am used to the head-ache, &c. If greater pains arrive (such as my late rheumatism) the servants bathe and plaster me, or the surgeon scarifies me, and I bear it, because I must. This is the evil of nature, not of fortune. I am just now as well as when you was here: I pray God you were no worse. I sincerely wish my life were passed near you, and, such as it is, I would not repine at it. All you mention remember you, and wish you here.

LETTER CXVI.

MR. CLELAND TO MR. GAY.*

Dec. 16, 1731.

I AM astonished at the complaints occasioned by a late Epistle to the Earl of Burlington, and I should be afflicted were there the least just grounds for them. Had the writer attacked vice at a time when it is not only tolerated but triumphant, and

* This was written by the same hand that wrote the Letter to the Publisher, prefixed to the Dunciad; and what hand that was, no one who reads this collection of Letters can be at a loss to ascertain. Warburton.

so far from being concealed as a defect, that it is proclaimed with ostentation as a merit; I should have been apprehensive of the consequence: had he satirized gamesters of a hundred thousand pounds fortune, acquired by such methods as are in daily practice, and almost universally encouraged had he over-warmly defended the religion of his country, against such books as come from every press, are publicly vended in every shop, and greedily bought by almost every rank of men; or had he called our excellent weekly writers by the same names which they openly bestow on the greatest men in the ministry, and out of the ministry, for which they are all unpunished, and most rewarded: in any of these cases, indeed, I might have judged him too presumptuous, and perhaps have trembled for his rashness.

I could not but hope better from this small and modest Epistle, which attacks no vice whatsoever; which deals only in folly, and not folly in general, but a single species of it; that only branch, for the opposite excellency to which the Noble Lord to whom it is written must necessarily be celebrated. I fancied it might escape censure, especially seeing how tenderly these follies are treated, and really less accused than apologized for.

Yet hence the poor are cloathed, the hungry fed,
Health to himself, and to his infants bread

The laborer bears.

Is this such a crime, that to impute it to a man must be a grievous offence? It is an innocent folly,

and much more beneficent than the want of it; for ill taste employs more hands, and diffuses expense more than a good one. Is it a moral defect? No, it is but a natural one, a want of taste. It is what the best good man living may be liable to. The worthiest peer may live exemplarily in an ill-favoured house, and the best reputed citizen be pleased with a vile garden. I thought (I say) the author had the common liberty to observe a defect, and to compliment a friend for a quality that distinguishes him: which I know not how any quality should do, if we were not to remark that it was wanting in others.

But, they say, the satire is personal. I thought it could not be so, because all its reflections are on things. His reflections are not on the man, but his house, garden, &c. Nay, he respects (as one may say) the persons of the Gladiator, the Nile, and the Triton: he is only sorry to see them (as he might be to see any of his friends) ridiculous by being in the wrong place, and in bad company. Some fancy, that to say a thing is personal, is the same as to say it is unjust, not considering, that nothing can be just that is not personal. I am afraid that "all such writings and discourses as touch no man, will mend no man." The good-natured, indeed, are apt to be alarmed at any thing like satire; and the guilty readily concur with the weak for a plain reason, because the vicious look upon folly as their frontier:

Jam proximus ardet
Ucalegon.

No wonder those who know ridicule belongs to them, find an inward consolation in moving it from themselves as far as they can; and it is never so far, as when they can get it fixed on the best characters. No wonder those who are food for satirists should rail at them as creatures of prey; every beast born for our use would be ready to call a man so.

I know no remedy, unless people in our age would as little frequent the theatres, as they begin to do the churches; unless comedy were forsaken, satire silent, and every man left to do what seems good in his own eyes, as if there were no king, no priest, no poet, in Israel.

But I find myself obliged to touch a point, on which I must be more serious; it well deserves I should: I mean the malicious application of the character of Timon, which, I will boldly say, they would impute to the person the most different in the world from a man-hater, to the person whose taste and encouragement of wit have often been shewn in the rightest place. The author of that Epistle must certainly think so, if he has the same opinion of his own merit as authors generally have; for he has been distinguished by this very person.

Why, in God's name, must a portrait, apparently collected from twenty different men, be applied to one only? Has it his eye? no, it is very unlike. Has it his nose or mouth? no, they are totally differing. What then, I beseech you? Why, it has the mole on his chin. Very well;