thoughts and fuitable expreffions, of forced and inextricable conceits, and of needlefs fillers up to the reft. From all which it is plain, this Author writ faft, and fet down what came uppermoft. A reader may skim off the froth, and use the clear underneath; but if he goes too deep will meet with a mouthful of dregs; either the top or bottom of him are good for little, bat what he did in his own, natural, middle-way, is beft.

To speak of his numbers, is a little difficult, they are fo various and irregular, and moftly Pindaric: 'tis evident his heroic verse (the best example of which is his Mufic's Duel) is carelessly made up; but one may imagine from what it now is, that, had he taken more care, it had been mufical and pleafing enough, not extremely majestic, but sweet; and, the time confider'd of his writing, he was (even as uncorrect as he is) none of the worft verfificators.

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I will juft obferve, that the best pieces of this author are, a Paraphrafe on Pfal. xxiii. On Leffius, Epitaph on Mr. Afhton, Wishes to his fuppos'd mistrefs, and the Dies Ira

LETTER XXVII.

Dec. 30, 1710.

I Refume my old liberty of throwing out myself upon paper to you, and making what thoughts float uppermoft in my head, the fubject of a letter. They are at prefent upon laughter, which (for ought I know) may be the caufe you might fometimes think me too remifs a friend, when I was most entirely fo: for I am 'never fo inclin'd to mirth as when I am moft pleas'd and moft eafy, which is in the company of a friend 'like yourself.

As the fooling and toying with a mistress is a proof of fondness, not disrespect, fo is raillery with a friend. I know there are prudes in friendship, who expect diftance, awe, and adoration, but I know you are not of them; and I for my part am no Idol-worshipper, tho' a Papift. If I were to address Jupiter himself in a heathen way, I fancy I should be apt to take hold of his knee, in a familiar manner, if not of his beard like Dionyfius; I was juft going to fay, of his buttons; but I think Jupiter wore none (however I won't be pofitive to so nice a critic as you, but his robe might be fubnected with a Fibula.) I know fome philofophers define laughter, A recommending ourselves to our own favour, by comparison with the weakness of another : but I am fure I very rarely laugh with that view, nor do I believe children have any such confideration in their heads, when they exprefs their pleafure this way: I laugh full as innocently as they, for the moft part, and as fiflily. There is a difference too betwixt laughing about a thing and laughing at a thing: one may find the inferior man (to make a kind of cafuistical diftinction). provoked to folly at the fight or obfervation of fome circumftance of a thing, when the thing itself appears folemn and auguft to the fuperior man, that is, our judgment and reafon. Let an ambaffador fpeak the best fenfe in the world, and deport himself in the moft graceful manner before a Prince, yet if the tail of his shirt happen (as I have known it happen to a very wife man) to hang out behind, more people will laugh at that than attend to the other; till they recollect themselves, and then they will not have a jot the lefs refpect for the minifter. I must confefs the iniquity of my countenance before you; feveral mufcles of my face fometimes take an impertinent liberty with my judgment, but then my judgment foon rifes, and fets

all right again about my mouth: and I find I value no man fo much, as him in whofe fight I have been playing the fool. I cannot be fub perfona before a man I love; and not to laugh with honefty, when nature prompts, or folly (which is more a second nature than any thing I know) is but a knavish hypocritical way of making a mask of one's own face.-To conclude, those that are my friends I laugh with, and those that are not I laugh at; so am merry in company, and if ever I am wife, it is all by myself. You take just another course, and to those that are not your friends, are very civil; and to those that are, very endearing and complaifant; thus when you and I meet, there will be the Rifus et Blanditiæ united together in converfation, as they commonly are in a verse. But without laughter on the one fide, or compliment on the other, I affure you I am, with real esteem, Your, etc.

LETTER XXVIII.

From Mr. CROMWELL.

O&. 26, 1711.

MR. Wycherley vifited me at Bath in my fickness,

and exprefs'd much affection to me hearing from me how welcome his letters would be, he presently writ to you; in which I inferted my fcrawl, and after, a fecond. He went to Gloucester in his way to Salop, but was disappointed of a boat, and fo return'd to the Bath; then he fhewed me your anfwer to his letters, in which you speak of my good-nature, but, I fear, you found me very froward at Reading; yet you allow for illness. I could not poffibly be in the fame Loufe with Mr. Wycherley, tho' I fought it earnestly;

my

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nor come up to town with him, he being engaged with others; but, whenever we met, he talk'd of you. praises your * Poem, and even outvies me in kind expreffions of you. As if he had not wrote two letters to you, he was for writing every pott; I put him in mind he had already. Forgive me this wrong; I know not whether my talking fso much of your great humanity and tenderness to me, and love to him; or whether the return of his natural difpofition to you, was the caufe; but certainly you are now highly in his favour: now he will come this winter to your house, and I must go with him; but firft he will invite you speedily to town.-I arrived on Saturday laft much wearied, yet had wrote fooner, but was told by Mr. Gay (who has writ a pretty poem to Lintot, and who gives you his fervice) that you was gone from home. Lewis fhewed me your Letter, which fet me right, and your next Letter is impatiently expected from me. Mr. Wycherley came to town on Sunday laft, and kindly furprized me with a visit on Monday morning. We dined and drank together; and I saying, To our Loves, he reply'd, 'Tis Mr. Pope's health: He faid he would go to Mr. Thorold's and leave a letter for you. Tho' I cannot answer for the event of all this, in refpect to him; yet I can affure you, that, when you please to come, you will be moft defirable to me, as always by inclination, so now by duty, who fhall ever Your, etc.

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LETTER XXIX.

Nov. 12, 1711.

Received the entertainment of your letter the day after I had sent you one of mine, and I am but this Effay on Criticism.

morning returned hither. The news you tell me of the many difficulties you found in your return from Bath, gives me fuch a kind pleasure as we ufually take in accompanying our friends in their mix'd adventures; for, methinks, I see you labouring thro' all your inconveniencies of the rough roads, the hard faddle, the trotting horse, and what not? What an agreeable fuprize would it have been to me, to have met you by pure accident (which I was within an ace of doing) and to have carried you off triumphantly, fet you on on easier pad, and relieved the wandring knight with a night's lodging and rural repast, at our caftle on the foreft? But thefe are only the pleafing imaginations of a disappointed lover, who must fuffer in a melancholy absence yet these two months. In the mean time, I take up with the Mufes for want of your better company; the Mufes, quæ nobifcum pernoctant, peregrinantur, rufticantur. Thofe aerial ladies juft difcover enough to me of their beauties to urge my purfuit, and draw me on in a wandering maze of thought, ftill in hopes (and only in hopes) of attaining thofe favours from them, which they confer on their more happy admirers. We grafp fome more beautiful idea in our own brain, than our endeavours to exprefs it can fet to the view of others; and ftill do but labour to fall short of our firft imagination. The gay colouring which fancy gave at the first tranfient glance we had of it, goes off in the execution like thofe various figures in the gilded clouds, which, while we gaze long upon, to feparate the parts of each imaginary image, the whole faints before the eye, and decays into confusion.

I am highly pleafed with the knowledge you give me of Mr. Wycherley's prefent temper, which seems so favourable to me. I fhall ever have fuch a fund of affection for him as to be agreeable to myself when I am fo