pable of doing, is to endeavour to lighten each other's load, and (oppressed as we are) to succour such as are yet more oppressed. If there are too many who cannot be assisted but by what we cannot give, our money; there are yet others who may be relieved by our counsel, by our countenance, and even by our cheerfulness. The misfortunes of private families, the misunderstandings of people whom distresses make suspicious, the coldness of relations whom change of religion may disunite, or the necessities of half ruined estates, render unkind to each other: these at least may be softened in some degree, by a general wellmanaged humanity among ourselves; if all those who have your principles of belief, had also your sense and conduct. But indeed most of them have given lamentable proofs of the contrary; and it is to be apprehended that they who want sense, are only religious through weakness, and good-natured through shame. These are narrow-minded creatures that never deal in essentials, their faith never looks beyond ceremonials, nor their charity beyond relations. As poor as I am, I would gladly relieve any distressed, conscientious French refugee at this instant: what must my concern then be, when I perceive so many anxieties now, tearing those hearts, which I have desired a place in, and clouds of melancholy rising on those faces, which I have long looked upon with affection? I begin already to feel both what some apprehend, and what others are yet too stupid to apprehend.

I grieve with the old, for so many additional inconveniences and chagrins, more than their small remains of life seemed destined to undergo; and with the young, for so many of those gaieties and pleasures (the portion of youth) which they will by this means be deprived of. This brings into my mind one or other of those I love best, and among them the widow and fatherless, late of —. As I am certain no people living had an earlier and truer sense of others' misfortunes, or a more generous resignation as to what might be their own, so I earnestly wish that whatever part they must bear, may be rendered as supportable to them, as it is in the power of any friend to make it.

But I know you have prevented me in this thought, as you always will in any thing that is good or generous: I find by a letter of your lady's (which I have seen) that their ease and tranquillity is part of your care. I believe there is some fatality in it, that you should always, from time to time, be doing those particular things that make me enamoured of you.

I write this from Windsor-Forest, of which I am come to take my last look. We here bid our neighbours adieu, much as those who go to be hanged do their fellow-prisoners who are condemned to follow them a few weeks after. I parted from honest Mr. D*** with tenderness; and from old Sir William Trumbull as from a venerable prophet, foretelling with lifted hands the miseries to

come, from which he is just going to be removed himself.

Perhaps, now I have learnt so far as

Nos dulcia linquimus arva,

my next lesson may be

Nos Patriam fugimus.

I believe

Let that, and all else be as Heaven pleases! I have provided just enough to keep me a man of honour. I believe you and I shall never be ashamed of each other. I know I wish my country well, and, if it undoes me, it shall not make me wish it otherwise.

LETTER VII.

FROM MR. BLOUNT.

March 24, 1715-16.

YOUR letters give me a gleam of satisfaction, in the midst of a very dark and cloudy situation of thoughts, which it would be more than human to be exempt from at this time, when our homes must either be left, or be made too narrow for us to turn in. Poetically speaking, I should lament the loss Windsor-Forest and you sustain of each other, but that methinks, one cannot say you are parted, because you will live by and in one another, while verse is verse. This consideration hardens me in my opinion rather to congratulate you, since you have the pleasure of the prospect whenever you take it from your shelf, and at the

same time the solid cash you sold it for, of which Virgil in his exile knew nothing in those days, and which will make every place easy to you. I for my part am not so happy; my parva rura are fastened to me, so that I cannot exchange them, as you have,* for more portable means of subsistence; and yet I hope to gather enough to make the Patriam fugimus supportable to me; it is what I am resolved on, with my Penates. If therefore you ask me, to whom you shall complain? I will exhort you to leave laziness and the elms of St. James's Park, and choose to join the other two proposals in one, safety and friendship, (the least of which is a good motive for most things, as the

*The following Letter, relating to the sale of Pope's father's house and property in Windsor-Forest, is in the British Museum:

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"SIR,

"To John Vander Bempden.

Bowles.

Thursday.

I

Upon what told me. you when I was last to wait on you, deferred treating farther for the rent-charge, till you could be certain what sum you could conveniently raise at present towards the purchase. If there were three of the 400l. wanting, we would take your bond; for as to a mortgage on the rent-charge, my father is not qualified to take it, for by an act of parliament he cannot buy land, though he may sell it.

66

However, if you desire to make the purchase soon, I believe I have a friend who will lend you the 1,000l. on the same security you offer us. If you have any other scruple, you will be pleased to tell me fairly; but if this purchase be convenient to you, we shall think of treating with no other, and be ready upon your answer; since I think what I here propose entirely accommodates all the difficulty you seem to be at. I am, Sir,

"Your very humble servant,

"A. POPE."

other is for almost every thing,) and go with me where war will not reach us, nor paltry constables summon us to vestries.

The future epistle you flatter me with, will find me still here, and I think I may be here a month longer. Whenever I go from hence, one of the few reasons to make me regret my home will be, that I shall not have the pleasure of saying to you,

Hic tamen hanc mecum poteris requiescere noctem, which would have rendered this place more agreeable than ever else it could be to me; for I protest, it is with the utmost sincerity that I assure you, I am entirely, Dear Sir,

Your, &c.

LETTER VIII.

TO MR. BLOUNT.

June 22, 1717.

If a regard both to public and private affairs may plead a lawful excuse in behalf of a negligent correspondent, I have really a very good title to it. I cannot say whether it is a felicity or unhappiness, that I am obliged at this time to give my whole application to Homer; when without that. employment, my thoughts must turn upon what is less agreeable, the violence, madness, and resentment of modern war-makers,* which are likely to prove (to some people at least) more. fatal than

* This was written in the year of the affair at Preston. Pope.