for a neighbour.

She seemed to long for such a

place, and agreed that it would fit her in all its circumstances, nobody feeling more than herself the true contentment such a situation would afford her way of thinking. If God but grant her resolution, when she has once made the step of going down with you (if that can be obtained of her foolish weakness for her family) I am convinced the thing is done; and she will become as sure and constant a friend and tenant for years to come as you could have. I found her (more than I could have imagined, satisfied of the conveniency and expediency of such a step), and I really hope it will be effectual.

"I rejoice that the smoke of the Pine-house is blown over at least, you flatter me in saying so. I should be sorry to blacken you, any way; there are others of my acquaintance who will be black, whether I will or no and you will be white in spite of all the accidental smokes in the world. Once more I tell you I am sick of this world and the great ones of it, though they have been my intimate acquaintance." 1

Pope spent this month in rooms in town, only going down to Twickenham for the Christmas holidays, where he was joined by Mr. Murray, Lord Marchmont, Lord Cornbury, and some other neighbours.

"These men of the world," he tells Allen, "envy me the quiet which they would not give themselves. I am offered to purchase the perpetuity of this house and garden, and the cottages near it, the first at twenty, the rest at thirteen years' purchase of the present rent. I am more indifferent about it than 1 From the unpublished MS.

before I saw Hampton, or knew Widcombe, finding there are two places, besides this, I could live and die in. Yet I am willing to finish all my works here, and wish for the rustic stone for the two little buildings, all the other materials being ready. I think that will be the last sacrifice I shall make to the nymph of the Thames."

1

His coming to town, he continues, has put a stop to the piraters of his book, who have surrendered all their copies to save themselves from further prosecution. But they had already sold five or six hundred, for which they refunded nothing. The true edition was now completed, and the poet begs Allen to tell Warburton how much it was improved by his notes and discourse. He is trying to serve that gentleman with a certain great man, but he puts little trust in great men, though this particular specimen had much of that which generally animated men of quality to good works—namely, vanity-and he was also not without learning. There is a little intimate touch at the conclusion of this letter. The poet thanks Allen for a present of birds, which had made him dine at home at two o'clock, "a practice I've continued ever since, and invite now and then a friend to a private lodging. Mrs. Blount and Mr. and Mrs. Arbuthnot are to see to my housekeeping there one day next month, and I sometimes dine with them, and carry my venison.2 I've not been at a great table thrice since I came from you."'

1 This may refer to the Correspondence, or to "The New Dunciad."

'He was kept supplied with venison by the Duchess of Marlborough.

From the unpublished MS.

CHAPTER LX

1743

Influenza-Death of Mrs. Blount-Visit to the Allens with Martha Blount-Disastrous Results-Partial Reconciliation

THE

HE Duchess of Marlborough, still with the deadly fear of "Characters" before her eyes, continued to lavish favours upon the poet, who responded in his favourite vein of gallant badinage. In one letter he says that he probably owes her more than she remembers. "First I owe you my house and gardens at Twit'nam, for you would have purchased them for me when you thought me fond of them. Secondly, I owe you a coach and horses, notwithstanding I fought you down to an arm-chair, and the other day I but named a house in town, and I saw with what attention you listened to it, and what you meant by that attention."

However, the project for the town house had fallen through, and the poet asked for nothing more than a couple of bucks for Allen, and a new order for Janette Mowat, presumably one of his pensioners.

In a letter for January 18, 1743, Pope reproaches the duchess for being unwilling to come

672

nearer him, or to suffer him to come to her. "To use me thus," he exclaims, "to have won me with some difficulty, to have bowed down all my pride, and reduced me to take that at your hands which I never took at any other, and as soon as you had done this to slight your conquest and cast me away with the common lumber of your friends in town-what a girl you are!"

In the spring of this year there was a severe epidemic of influenza, and Pope was laid up with a sharp attack, from the effects of which he never quite recovered. In March he wrote to Allen that he had suffered from all the forms of the prevailing distemper, but, by the help of Dr. Broxolm, he was cured. He found, even at home, the want of such a nurse as Mrs. Allen. "I assure you all one's great friends and great philosophers put together are not half so great a comfort as one good woman in these circumstances; and so tell Dr. Cheyne and Dr. Hartley too, if you please, for I think neither of 'em will be angry at this; though many doctors would, who have the vanity to think themselves better, as well as wiser, than women."

However, with or without a nurse, he was so far recovered that he was going to London to comfort Miss Blount, whose mother he believed was dying. "What she will resolve, or not resolve upon in that case, God knows! I am sure she would not engage her life or fortune with her sister, and yet I apprehend she will scarce out of compassion leave her just upon it.

"I received your two chairs, and think them

་་

very easy.

I have since from Mrs. Allen the

oysters, and such oysters (for, ill as I was, I could not help tasting them), as neither the oysters of Tenby, nor of all Wales put together, no, nor the oysters so admired by the Romans from our shores, nor-in short, nothing that bore the name of oysters ever could equal.

"A praise as high as this has been given your rusticks by the greatest judge, Mr. Kent, who prefers them to all he ever saw artificial in the world. . .

"1

For April 12 there is another long letter to Prior Park, which deals in some detail with the affairs of Martha Blount, who had now lost her mother. There is an interesting allusion, moreover, to Pope's old enemy, Fielding, who had published his first novel, "Joseph Andrews," the previous year. Fielding was a protégé of Allen's, and Pope seems to have undertaken to convey some pecuniary assistance to the novelist." The good fairy of Prior Park

66

From the unpublished MS. In another manuscript letter of this period Pope says: As to the rusticks which, tho' they would finish all my front with perfect beauty, I am half unwilling to trouble you further, for the same quantity of six ton weight as I last had, will accomplish all; provided they cut off the thick and useless part of the stones, it's no matter of what sizes (for we can piece them as well, if not very small), but John says those stones are best that come from the side of the hill, not from the top."

2 Pope's heart was probably softened towards Fielding by the knowledge that the novelist was in difficulties. Also, he usually adopted his friends' friends as his own, and Fielding was intimate with Young as well as Allen. The bad understanding between the two had lasted, however, till within a very few years of the period now reached. Pope was said to have attended the first performance of Fielding's skit, Pasquin, produced in 1736, which helped to bring down the Playhouse Bill on the heads of the managers and dramatists. There is a caricature, attributed to Hogarth, which shows Pope leaving his box during the per

1