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mote from London than fourfcore miles and laftly, that prayers and roaft-beef a tually make fome people as happy, as a whore and a bottle. But here in town, I affure you, men, women, and children have done with thefe things. Charity not only begins, but ends, at home. Inftead of the four cardinal virtues, now reign four courtly ones: we have cunning for prudence, rapine for juftice, time-ferving for fortitude, and luxury for temperance. Whatever you may fancy where you live in a ftate of ignorance, and fee nothing but quiet, religion, and good-humour, the cafe is juft as I tell you where people understand the world, and know how to live with credit and glory.

I wish that Heaven would open the eyes of men, and make them fenfible which of thefe is right; whether, upon a due conviction, we are to quit faction, and gaming, and high feeding, and all manner of luxury, and to take to your country way? or you to leave prayers, and almfgiving, and reading, and exercife, and come into our measures? I wish (I fay) that this matter were as clear to all men, as it is to

Your affectionate, etc.

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LETTER XVIII.

April 21, 1726.

DEAR SIR, Have a great inclination to write to you, tho' I cannot by writing any more than I could by words, exprefs what part I bear in your fufferings. Nature and Efteem in you are join'd to aggravate your affliction the latter I have in a degree equal even to yours, and a tye of friendship approaches near to the tendernefs of nature yet, God knows, no man living is lefs fit to comfort you, as no man is more deeply fenfible than myself of the greatness of the lofs. That

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very virtue which fecures his prefent ftate from all the forrows incident to ours, does but aggrandife our fenfation of its being remov'd from our fight, from our affection, and from our imitation; for the friendship and fociety of good men does not only make us happier, but it makes us better. Their Death does But complete their felicity before our own, who probably are not yet arrived to that degree of perfection which merits an immediate reward. That your dear brother and my dear friend was fo, I take his very removal to be a proof; Providence would certainly lend virtuous men to a world that fo much wants them, as long as in its juftice to them it could fpare them to us. May my foul be with those who have meant well, and have afted well to that meaning! and, I doubt not, if this prayer be granted, I fhall be with him. Let us preferve his memory in the way he would beft like, by recollecting what his behaviour would have been, in every incident of our lives to come, and doing in eách just as we think he would have done; fo we shall have him always before our eyes, and in our minds, and (what is more) in our lives and manners. I hope when we shall meet him next, we fhall be more of a piece with him, and confequently not to be evermore feparated from him. I will add but one word that relates to what remains of yourself and me, fince so valued a part of us is gone; it is to beg you to accept, as yours by inheritance, of the vacancy he has left in a heart, which (while he could fill it with fuch hopes, wishes and affections for him as suited a mortal creature) was truly and warmly his; and fhall (I affure you in the fincerity of forrow for my own lofs) be faithfully at your service while I continue to love his memory, that is, while I continue to be myself.

Mr. Digby died in the year 1726, and is buried in the church of Sherburne in Dorfetfhire, with an Epitaph written by the Author.

LETTERS

TO AND FROM

Dr. ATTERBURY,

Bishop of ROCHESTER,

From the Year 1716 to 1723.

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LETTER I.

The Bishop of ROCHESTER to Mr. POPE.

Decemb. 1716, Return your Preface, which I have read twice with pleafure. The modesty and good fenfe there is in it, must please every one that reads it: And fince there is nothing that can offend, I fee not why you fhould balance a moment about printing it-always provided, that there is nothing faid there which you may have occafion to unfay hereafter: of which you yourself are the best and the only judge. This is my fincere opinion, which I give, because you ask it: and which I would not give tho' asked, but to a man I value as much as I do you; being fenfible how improper it is, on many accounts, for me to interpofe in things of this

The general preface to Mr. Pope's Poems, firft printed 1717 the year after the date of this letter.

nature; which I never understood well, and now understand somewhat less than ever I did. But I can deny you nothing; efpecially fince you have had the goodnefs often, and patiently, to hear what I have faid againft rhyme, and in behalf of blank verfe; with little difcretion, perhaps, but, I am fure, without the leaft prejudice: being myself equally incapable of writing well in either of those ways, and leaning therefore to neither fide of the question, but as the appearance of reafon inclines me. Forgive me this error, if it be one; an error of above thirty years ftanding, and which therefore I fhall be very loth to part with. In other matters which relate to polite writing, I fhall feldom differ from you: or, if I do, shall, I hope, have the prudence to conceal my opinion. I am as much as I ought to be, that is, as much as any man can be, Your, etc.

I

LETTER II.

The Bishop of ROCHESTER to Mr. POPE.

Feb. 18, 1717. Hoped to find you laft night at Lord Bathurst's, and came but a few minutes after you had left him. I brought Gorboduc* with me; and Dr. Arbuthnot telling me he should fee you, I depofited the book in his hands out of which, I think, my Lord Bathurst got it before we parted, and from him therefore you are to claim it. If Gorboduc should still miss his way to you, others are to anfwer for it; I have delivered up my

A Tragedy, written in the Reign of Edward the fixth (and much the best performance of that Age) by Sackville, afterwards Earl of Dorfet, and Lord Treafurer to Queen Elizabeth. It was then very scarce, but lately reprinted by R. Dodsley in Pall-mall.

truft. I am not forry your † Alcander is burnt; had I known your intentions, I would have interceded for the first page, and put it, with your leave, among my curiofities. In truth, it is the only inftance of that kind I ever met with, from a perfon good for any thing else, nay for every thing elfe to which he is pleas'd to turn himself.

Depend upon it, I fhall fee you with great pleasure at Bromley; and there is no request you can make to me, that I shall not most readily comply with. I wish you health and happiness of all forts, and would be glad to be inftrumental in any degree towards helping you to the leaft fhare of either. I am always, every where, most affectionately and faithfully

Your, etc.

I

LETTER III.

The Bishop of ROCHESTER to Mr. POPE.

Bromley, Nov. 8, 1717.

Have nothing to fay to you on that melancholy fubject, with an account of which the printed papers have furnished me, but what you have already said to yourself.

When you have paid the debt of tenderness you owe to the memory of a Father, I doubt not but you will turn your thoughts towards improving that accident to your own eafe and happiness. You have it now in your power, to pursue that method of thinking and living which you like beft. Give me leave, if I am not a little too early in my applications of this kind, to congratulate you upon it; and to affure you that there is

An Heroic Poem writ at 15 years old.