all the arts of fiction, I desire you to believe I want that of feigning friendship, and that I am sincerely Your, &c. LETTER XVIII. FROM MR. WYCHERLEY. May 13, 1708. I HAVE received yours of the first of May. Your pastoral muse outshines in her modest and natural dress all Apollo's court-ladies, in their more artful, laboured, and costly finery. Therefore I am glad to find by your letter you design your country-beauty of a muse shall appear at court and in public: to outshine all the farded, lewd, confident, affected town-dowdies, who aim at being honoured only to their shame: but her artful innocence (on the contrary) will gain more honour as she becomes public; and, in spite of custom, will bring modesty again into fashion, or at least make her sister-rivals of this age blush for spite, if not for shame. As for my stale, antiquated, poetical puss, whom you would keep in countenance by saying she has once been tolerable, and would yet pass muster by a little licking over, it is true, that (like most vain antiquated jades which have once been passable) she yet affects youthfulness in her age, and would still gain a few admirers (who the more she seeks or labours for their liking, are but more her contemners). Nevertheless she is resolved henceforth to be so cautious as to appear very little more in the world, except it be as an attendant on your muse, or as a foil, not a rival to her wit, or fame: so that let your country-gentlewoman appear when she will in the world,* my old worn-out jade of a lost reputation shall be her attendant into it, to procure her admirers; as an old whore, who can get no more friends of her own, bawds for others, to make sport or pleasure yet, one way or other, for mankind. I approve of your making Tonson your muse's introductor into the world, or master of the ceremonies, who has been so long a pimp, or gentleman-usher to the muses. I wish you good fortune; since a man with store of wit, as store of money, without the help of good fortune, will never be popular; but I wish you a great many admirers, which will be some credit to my judgment as well as your wit, who always thought you had a great deal, and am Your, &c. *This, and what follows, is a full confutation of John Dennis and others, who asserted that Mr. Pope wrote these verses on himself (though published by Mr. Wycherley six years before his death). We find here, it was a voluntary act of his, promised before-hand, and written while Mr. Pope was absent. The first brouillon of those verses, and the second copy with corrections, are both yet extant in Mr. Wycherley's own hand. In another of his Letters of May 18, 1708, are these words: "I have made a damned compliment in verse upon the printing your Pastorals, which you shall see when you see me." Pope. LETTER XIX. FROM MR. WYCHERLEY. May 17, 1709. I MUST thank you for a book of your Miscellanies, which Tonson sent me, I suppose, by your order; and all I can tell you of it is, that nothing has lately been better received by the public than your part of it. You have only displeased the critics by pleasing them too well; having not left them a word to say for themselves, against you and your performances; so that, now your hand is in, you must persevere, till my prophecies of you be fulfilled. In earnest, all the best judges of good sense or poetry, are admirers of yours; and like your part of the book so well, that the rest is liked the worse. This is true upon my word, without compliment: so that your first success will make you for all your life a poet, in spite of your wit; for a poet's success at first, like a gamester's fortune at first, is like to make him a loser at last, and to be undone by his good fortune and merit. But hitherto your miscellanies have safely run the gauntlet, through all the coffee-houses; which are now entertained with a whimsical new newspaper, called the TATLER, which I suppose you have seen. This is the newest thing I can tell you of, except it be of the peace, which now (most people say) is drawing to such a conclusion, as all Europe is, or must be satisfied with; so poverty, you see, which makes peace in Westminster-Hall, makes it likewise in the camp or field, throughout the world. Peace then be to you, and to me, who am now grown peaceful, and will have no contest with any man, but him who says he is more your friend or humble servant, than Your, &c. LETTER XX. TO MR. WYCHERLEY. May 20, 1709. I AM glad you received the Miscellany,* if it were only to shew you that there are as bad poets in this nation as your servant. This modern custom of appearing in miscellanies, is very useful to the poets, who, like other thieves, escape by getting into a crowd, and herd together like banditti, safe only in their multitude. Methinks Strada has given a good description of these kind of collections: Nullus hodie mortalium aut nascitur, aut moritur, aut præliatur, aut rusticatur, aut abit peregrè, aut redit, aut nubit, aut est, aut non est, (nam etiam mortuis isti canunt) cui non illi extemplò cudant Epicadia, Genethliaca, Protreptica, Panegyrica, Epithalamia, Vaticinia, Propemptica, Soterica, Parænetica, Nanias, Nugas. As to the success, which, you say, my part has met with, it is to be attributed to what you • Jacob Tonson's sixth volume of Miscellany Poems. Pope. was pleased to say of me to the world; which you do well to call your prophecy, since whatever is said in my favour, must be a prediction of things that are not yet; you, like a true godfather, engage on my part for much more than ever I can perform. My pastoral muse, like other country girls, is but put out of countenance, by what you courtiers say to her; yet I hope you would not deceive me too far, as knowing that a young scribbler's vanity needs no recruits from abroad: for Nature, like an indulgent mother, kindly takes care to supply her sons with as much of their own, as is necessary for their satisfaction. If my verses should meet with a few flying commendations, Virgil has taught me, that a young author has not too much reason to be pleased with them, when he considers that the natural consequence of praise and calumny : is envy Si ultra placitum laudarit, baccare frontem When once a man has appeared as a poet, he may give up his pretensions to all the rich and thriving arts: those who have once made their court to those mistresses without portions, the muses, are never like to set up for fortunes. But for my part, I shall be satisfied if I can lose my time agreeably this way, without losing my reputation: as for gaining any, I am as indifferent in the matter as Falstaff was, and may say of fame as he did of honour: "If it comes, it comes unlooked for; and there's an end on't." I can be content with a |